TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) — A new bill at the statehouse aims to prevent immigrants lacking proper legal status from operating commercial vehicles.
The sponsor of the legislation, State Senator Don Gaetz (R-Crestview), is hoping to create harsher penalties for immigrant commercial drivers living in the U.S. illegally and the companies that hire them.
According to Senate Bill 86, an “illegal immigrant” found driving a commercial vehicle would be turned over to federal immigration officials and the company owning the vehicle could be banned from Florida.
“We want to make sure that the people who put that illegal driver in the driver’s seat will not be able to do business anymore in the state of Florida,” said Gaetz.
The bill comes on the heels of a deadly crash that took the lives of three people this past August.
Florida Highway Patrol said Harjinder Singh was driving a semi-truck on the Florida Turnpike when he tried making an illegal U-turn. Investigators later learned he entered the country illegally in 2018, before getting his commercial driver’s license in California.
The crash stirred arguments nationally and sparked federal action to make it harder for non-U.S. citizens to get their CDLs.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier even filed a lawsuit against California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state because of their sanctuary policies for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
“The person or the entity that I’m really upset with is the trucking company that hired him or the Transit Authority or leasing company that put him in that driver’s seat when he didn’t know what he was doing, and they knew he didn’t know what he was doing,” said Gaetz.
And as the debate continues on the national stage, Democrats argue that bills like this are not the right steps to take when solving the immigration crisis.
“Americans have seen what Trump’s immigration policies are doing, and they don’t like masked ICE agents grabbing parents outside of schools. They don’t like hard-working neighbors being taken with no warning and little to no due process,” said State Rep. Fentrice Driskell.
Gaetz said he expects lively debate on the issue this session, but believes that, working alongside law enforcement, they have a bill they can defend.
“The issue deserves to be debated about, it deserves to be aired out, and I think it deserves to be passed,” said Gaetz.
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