FL Representative Lake Ray is a raging bigot. (That's just another way of saying Florida conservative.) There is no shortage of problems to fix in this state—most of which were caused by the GOP legislature to begin with. Yet while we demand action against death hospitals, water pollution or those destroying our education system, Mr. Ray thought it was a perfect time to push for a bill that is so over-the-top in its immigrant-bashing that it makes Donald Trump come across as a class act.
After all, the Donald just wants to oppress Muslims, along with anyone who looks like them. The GOP-controlled Florida House apparently wants to turn the military loose on them.
The Onion-esque bill Mr. Ray introduced, HB 1095, is called the "Prevention of Acts of War." It gives fantasy war powers to Rick Scott. As the Orlando Sentinelexplains:
Gov. Rick Scott would be able to use military power to keep immigrants or refugees from entering Florida if they are from or have been near countries where "invaders" live or train if a bill a House committee approved Wednesday becomes law.
The Prevention of Acts of War bill would let the governor declare that certain immigrants and refugees are "restricted people" if he determines they are from countries where he believes invaders want to come to the United States to attack people or property.
The bill even called the refugees “invaders.” Naturally, the bill was approved by the House committee with all nine Republicans in favor and all four Democrats against.
And just to drive home the point that this is all about fear-mongering bigotry, the bill exempts immigrants ”born in the Western Hemisphere.”
In case you are completely clueless with how law works, (in other words, if you’re a right-wing Florida politician), this is not legal. It is not constitutional. No, the governor actually can't send in tanks to crush an encampment of Syrian refugees relocated by the federal government, no matter what this bill says. I’m sorry, GOP, you will just have to resort to legal means to stem the invading army of…. malnourished Syrian babies?
Not that that has ever stopped the governor. He has spent over a million in legal fees defending bad laws.
Don’t worry, even if this gets thrown out by the courts, I'm sure there are plenty of legal ways to still cause the refugees harm. I’m sure they'll try. It’s what Jesus would do. (Except He was from the Middle East, so He’d get the tank treatment too.)
I would go on a rant that refugees fleeing ISIS are by definition NOT ISIS, but I would be wasting my breath. As one Democratic representative explained as to why she didn’t debate the bill, "It's hard to dignify a bill like that by debating it."
Lest you think the GOP only gets off on harming Syrian refugees, no worries. This bill comes on the heels of other GOP House bills that target Hispanic immigrants, such as charging undocumented immigrants who violate deportation orders with a third degree felony and another one that suspends sovereign immunity for local governments with sanctuary policies for immigrants.
As you can see, there is plenty of hate to go around. Yet Syrian refugees get a special kind of hate: whereas other GOP legislatures might try to block or sue war-scarred immigrants, we kicked it up a notch by threatening military action. Don't mess with Florida.
Your move, Donald.