Immigration advocates have swarmed Tallahassee this week to protest HB 7089 and SB 2040. They met with Sen. J.D. Alexander on Monday, with Senate President Mike Haridopolos on Tuesday, and have staged vigils and prayers in the corridors of the state Capitol.
Now a tea party activist from Northwest Florida says he has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, contending that the lawmakers and the Capitol police should have reported the presence of undocumented immigrants and their children to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"I consider this aiding and abetting suspected illegal immigrants in the State Capital Building," Geoff Ross, a retired Navy veteran, wrote in an e-mail sent on Tuesday. "The Homeland Security Investigations Office in Washington will assign an investigation team for me which is now in process and they will be requesting more information from me tomorrow."
Ross said he tried to reach Sen. Anitere Flores, the Miami Republican who introduced the bill in the Senate. When he called Capitol police, Ross wrote, they informed him all the visitors were screened through security and did not have any weapons.
When Haridopolos met with the advocates on Tuesday, they told him some members of the group were either undocumented or the children of undocumented immigrants. He didn't say or ask anything about their immigration status, and said his chamber was still working on its version of the bill.
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