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One bill would put $76,000 toward police fingerprint scanners. Another focuses on stopping taxpayer money from being spent on anyone in the country illegally.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Two Jacksonville city councilmembers are taking aim at the issue of illegal immigration.
Jacksonville City Councilmembers Rory Diamond and Kevin Carrico each filed bills regarding illegal immigration. One bill would allot city money for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to buy $76,000 worth of fingerprint scanners. Another focuses on stopping taxpayer dollars from being spent on anyone in the country illegally.
“It allocates some resources over to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office,” said Carrico about his bill.
“The focus is to make sure that American taxpayer dollars go to American citizens,” said Diamond about his bill.
Carrico’s bill would use city money to buy 25 mobile fingerprinting devices that each cost about $3,000, according to Carrico and JSO.
“And the other half of the bill, it makes it illegal to enter the county of Duval if you are an illegal alien,” Carrico said.
Mayor Donna Deegan told First Coast News in a statement the bills may be “redundant to existing state and federal law” and that money from millions of dollars in new state grants should be considered.
Diamond’s bill includes requiring the mayor’s office to provide information on any people living in city-owned public housing who are in the country illegally and prohibits the use of city funds for services that support them. It mentions the nonprofit Kids Hope Alliance.
“People in Jacksonville are very welcoming, they’re awesome, they want to help people, but I think it’s fair to say that they want their money to go to people who are gonna stay here who are here legally,” Diamond said.
With the mention of Kids Hope Alliance, Jacksonville Immigration Attorney Anny Leon views the bill as targeting children and said immigrants in the country illegally normally wouldn’t qualify for public housing.
“These types of legislation that are so anti-immigrant, they are going to get exactly what they’re looking for which is to absolutely terrorize everybody, but I don’t think that they have thought of the consequences of immigrants leaving Florida,” Leon said.
City Councilmember Matt Carlucci believes there may be “politics at play” with the pieces of legislation and doesn’t think the city should be footing the bill for immigration issues.
“If immigration was causing huge crime wave issues in Jacksonville then that might would be one thing, but I don’t see it and I live in an area where there are a lot of immigrants,” Carlucci said.
The bills are listed to be introduced at the city council meeting Tuesday. This all comes just days after Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters was selected for a new Florida immigration enforcement council.