Grady Judd and Florida's CFO want more restrictions placed on illegal immigrants

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. - Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia joined law enforcement officers from across the Bay Area to discuss the state’s illegal immigration policies and enforcement.

The backstory:

In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act. Ingoglia said It was supposed to be a landmark law that granted illegal immigrants amnesty, but at the same time was supposed to strengthen border security and workplace enforcement. 

"Almost 3M illegal immigrants were awarded amnesty, and the enhanced immigration enforcement never ever happened," Ingoglia stated. "Over time, we had seen that immigration laws were weakened, creating an opportunity for more and more illegal immigration. Foreign nationals, people in other countries saw that the United States just granted amnesty to three million illegal immigrants with no follow up enforcement whatsoever, which incentivized even more illegal immigration. For decades, illegal immigrants crossed our borders successfully while state’s created programs to help them."

He said that eventually those state programs acted like magnets, attracting more illegal immigrants to the United States. 

Ingoglia noted that Florida banned sanctuary cities, enhanced criminal penalties for human smuggling and added human smuggling to the list of crimes allowed under prosecution under the state’s RICO Act. 

READ: Trump administration revokes more than 100,000 visas in first year back

He added that Florida also stopped issuing driver’s licenses and community IDs to illegal immigrants. The state also implemented mandatory DNA testing for illegal immigrants who commit crimes to get them entered into the database. 

Ingoglia said Florida also mandated that hospitals start tracking how much money was being spent on healthcare for illegal immigrants and stopped in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. He noted that businesses were required to use E-Verify and the state stopped illegal immigrants from getting a law license. 

"Probably, most importantly, and one of the reasons we are here today, is mandatory 287G, where we have a partnership with the federal government and our law enforcement, the men and women standing behind me, so we can rid our communities of the criminal element those illegal immigrants commit crimes," Ingoglia stated. 

Dig deeper:

During a press conference on Thursday, Ingoglia laid out legislation that was filed to crack down on illegal immigration.

He said the proposed legislation would prohibit all commercial driver’s license pre-licensing instruction testing and licensing procedures from being given in any other language than English.

"If you are going to be on our roads as a truck driver, you need to know the language," Ingoglia explained. "The days of you skating by and being on our roads causing harm are over in the state of Florida.

He also said the state wants to remove illegal aliens as covered employees under the Workers’ Compensation statute.

"We think that if you are a business owner and you hire an illegal immigrant and that person, if she or he gets hurt on your watch, it should come out of your pocket," Ingoglia said. "You should pay for all of it. The system should not."

RELATED: Grady Judd, Florida sheriffs crack down on illegal immigration: ‘The game has changed’

He went on to say that before any benefits are issued, the E-verify system needs to be checked to make sure they are in the country legally.

"We need to end the use of illegal IDs from sanctuary states to open up bank accounts and cashier’s checks because we know that is one way they not only send money back to people in the country that they came from, but to the drug cartels that helped smuggle them over the Southern Border to get here," Ingoglia added.

The CFO also said Florida wants to ban illegal immigrants from down-payment assistant programs meant to help Florida’s families own their own homes and prevent illegal aliens from getting silent second mortgages.

"We want to prohibit illegal aliens from getting any license from financial services," Ingoglia explained. "Not that we do it now and we won’t do it on my watch, but you never know who will be in this position 10- 20-30 years down the road. We want it in law to make sure that never happens."

Ingoglia also stated that Florida wants to require car insurance companies that insure illegal immigrants using outlawed driver’s licenses to fully accept the financial burden of a car accident involving those illegal immigrants.

Dig deeper:

In the past 90 days, Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said ten people were arrested who were here illegally and had state charges.

"We’re going after people committing these crimes, but these people shouldn’t have been here, and as CFO Ingoglia said, these are crimes that should have never occurred," Nocco said. "These are people who never should have been victimized. These are people who never should have been in this country."

Judd added that 74% of the illegal immigrants his deputies detained had criminal charges against them, and the other 26% were riding with them.

By the numbers:

During Thursday’s press conference, Ingoglia also presented several Bay Area law enforcement agencies with checks coming from 287G reimbursement.

• Polk County Sheriff’s Office received more than $1M
• Hernando County Sheriff’s Office received more than $320,000
• Sarasota Sheriff’s Office received more than $283,000
• Hardee County Sheriff’s Office received more than $100,000
• Port Richey Police Department received more than $32,000