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Alexander struggles with immigration bill

Polk County Democrat – May 7, 2011

In the end, JD Alexander voted according to his conscience, not his political affiliation card.

In what was certainly a week of furious activity as the Florida Legislature worked to bring the current session to a close, there was nothing more dramatic or polarizing than debate on a proposed Florida immigration bill that would have more closely modeled strict laws now on the books in Arizona.

Alexander, chairman of the Senate’s powerful budget committee and grandson of citrus magnate Ben Hill Griffin, Jr., surveyed the landscape, that of the state’s and his own personal interests in citrus and cattle, and voted against a bill he himself just weeks early had been asked to sponsor by Senate President Mike Haridopolos.

“I should have probably voted for it,” Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said in a Miami Herald story published after the vote. “The reality is, I just didn’t like that whole set of issues … I probably shouldn’t have left members hanging and voted with them. I think it’s good policy that we put forward.”

There were, the affable lawmaker said, a lot of reasons he couldn’t support a majority of his colleagues.

“It’s easy to talk about — you know, down at the post office, at the bar — you know, we ought to do this thing,” Alexander, told senators in a floor speech Tuesday. “But when you start looking in people’s eyes and understand they are people who live and breathe just like us — I think you all need to think about it very carefully.”

The more he looked, closely, the less he liked what he saw.

“As I got into it more and more, I got more and more uncomfortable with it,” Alexander said. “I didn’t feel morally I could make that choice. It became not a political issue but a moral issue.”

He ended up with the bill, he suggested, because he is a citrus grower.

“I probably know more about the reality of these issues than anybody else on the floor,” he added.

Florida’s House had already approved an even stronger immigration bill, and time ran out on the two sides to reach a compromise bill.

“Where we stand here today is caused by an absolute failure of our federal government to come to terms with a fair, equitable and reasonable way to handle these issues,” he added.

Haridopolos said he was glad the Senate had the debate even if the House may not take up the bill, and, while expressing frustration at the lack of federal enforcement of immigration laws, acknowledged the difficulty of the issue.

“I met a lot of these folks up here in Tallahassee,” said Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, referring to the protesting immigrants who descended on the Capitol this week. “People are just looking for an opportunity … you blame them for wanting to live here?

“As Sen. Alexander described very well, a lot of Americans choose not to do the type of jobs he spoke about, being paid roughly $9 and in some cases back-breaking work where as other people might be willing to do that,” Haridopolos said.

Among Alexander’s concerns: the so-called E-Verify system for immigrant workers and that it’s costly for employers.

“The Florida Senate stands up for hard-working folks and doesn’t do the politically expedient thing, but does the right thing,” said Alexander, who employs hundreds of migrant farmworkers. “If it takes more time to get it right and more time for our federal leaders to come to some sort of reasonable solution then that may be what’s best.”

The House version let police check immigration status if the person was a subject of a criminal investigation and mandated the use of E-Verify at private businesses around the state.

The Senate readied a version Tuesday that would require publicly-funded job boards to check applicants’ immigration status, ask state and local agencies to determine the legality of people seeking public benefits and require law enforcement to make “reasonable efforts” to verify the immigration status of anyone who has been arrested and is in police custody.

The Senate rejected an attempt to put in language that would fine employers who hire illegal immigrants, thus encouraging them to use the federal E-Verify system, which the business community has said is riddled with problems.

Alexander said in his floor debate the issue was not as “simplistic” as some wanted to make it and even argued against the E-Verify provisions that the House had advocated and that Senate leadership also backed.

The problem is that many people have been in the country for decades with tacit permission from the federal government, Alexander said. Making it impossible for them to work seemed unfair, he added.

“We’re talking about people who with a wink and a nod from the federal government have been here working, building a family, trying to send their kids to school,” he said.

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