Immigrant-Rights Activists Protest Gainesville Police Department
Thursday afternoon, protesters organized by the Gainesville Immigrant Neighbor Inclusion Initiative (GINI) held a protest outside the Gainesville Police Department (GPD) due to their new policy of reporting individuals they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).
On August 27, GPD issued General Order 82.4, requiring officers to report individuals they suspect of being in the country without legal authorization regardless of whether that person is subject to a criminal investigation. The policy instructs officers to report “suspected unauthorized aliens” to the FDLE with a form that includes their photo and other personal information.
The general order further instructs GPD officers to contact a designated immigration officer with the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office if they find an individual has a warrant from ICE or any other federal law enforcement agency.
The general order states that “personal characteristics" such as “limited English proficiency” does not on its own “establish reasonable suspicion of a criminal offense” or warrant an investigation. The general order then says, “These elements in combination with others, such as flight, may contribute to reasonable suspicion. Personal characteristics may be taken into account only where there is credible, reliable, locally relevant, temporally specific information that links a person of specific description to particular criminal incidents and is combined with other identifying information.”
In the general order, GPD cites Florida Statute 908.1031 as the law requiring them to enact the policy. The law refers to the duties of the State Board of Immigration Enforcement, which is under the FDLE. The law references the Board having authority over local governments in matters relating to immigration enforcement.
Officers with the Ocala and Lake City Police Departments indicated that they do not have a similar policy, TV20 reported.
GINI organizer Ethan Maia de Needell told GnvInfo that GPD gave them a heads up in a meeting two days before releasing the new general order. He said that GPD told them it “was a mandate from the state.” Maia de Needell said that he believes “increasing state pressure” got GPD to “concede unnecessarily.”
Claire Noguerol, a protester affiliated with GINI and school counselor, said that the new general order puts GPD school resource officers (SRO) in a “very awkward position of having to determine whether or not a student is undocumented or documented.” “They don’t have access to that information anyway,” she said. “So are we creating an opportunity for any SRO to racially profile our students within the school setting; our kids will be too afraid to come to school.”
Noguerol said she has seen students afraid to come to school when they don’t have access to a school bus due to the frequency of traffic stops that result in immigration arrests.
Noguerol said she thinks GPD and the city would reconsider the general order if they see how it affects the students and enough people speak out.
