By:  Larry Ashley Republican Candidate for Sheriff

The anecdotal and pervasive attitude among many people, especially those in the conservative ranks, is that illegal aliens commit crimes, flee from traffic accidents, operate without proper licensing, attend school, obtain medical services, all without paying for these services and/or paying taxes or otherwise supporting our society. While there is no panacea to these issues, enforcement of our current immigration laws will bring little meaningful relief until our borders are secured and a comprehensive Federal enforcement plan is implemented. Without the ability to actually deport illegal aliens back to their home country, we merely transfer our cost from housing, education, and medical expenses to our cost for jailing illegal immigrants. Until then, we must work to lessen the incentive to hire illegal aliens and enforce current laws that prohibit it. Thus said, I propose the following solutions:

1.          Require employers to have Federal I-9 forms (verifying identity of new hires) available for inspection by local law enforcement, and to provide them upon demand. Right now we can subpoena them, but that gives the employers and workers time to leave the area before we can make any checks (Problem: The federal law gives employers three days to provide the I-9s even to federal inspectors, and does not require them to provide them at all to local law enforcement without a subpoena). The I-9 form information can then only be used to combat identity theft by the illegal alien employees. By compelling the employer to produce this information it cannot be used against them without violating Fifth Amendment rights. The Panhandle Patriots and Tea Party can lobby our legislators to help accomplish this needed requirement.

2.      Change state policy to allow the Worker’s Compensation Compliance inspectors to work jointly with local law enforcement. We have previously conducted joint operations which were very successful. Unfortunately, some at the state level have declined the continued cooperation of inspectors in conducting joint operations at the local level. Allowing the Florida Department of Financial Services to utilize their Worker's Compensation Compliance Inspectors to assist local law enforcement in joint investigations would better enhance our ability to uncover identity fraud committed by illegal aliens and those who profit from it. 

3.      Lobby Representatives to have the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland security merge the Immigration Fingerprint Database with the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). These are two separate systems and when local law enforcement runs a person’s prints they do not check against the Immigration Fingerprint Database which would help in identifying both legal and illegal aliens at the local level.

4.      Local law enforcement already has legal authority to check the immigration status of those detained for state offenses however the time required to do so is up to two hours. This is due to our reliance on a federal system that requires manual checks of four different databases. Requiring the Department of Homeland security and the U.S. State Department, specifically: (Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the U.S. State Department) to merge and automate these four databases will allow for more timely and comprehensive queries while unauthorized aliens are detained.

5.      Giving local law enforcement the authority to arrest is one suggestion however I recommend against this until such time as the Federal Government has the ability to provide timely and reliable information regarding an individual's immigration status. In the past we have received conflicting information when checking specific persons. Incarcerating suspected illegal aliens while awaiting action by the federal government is cost prohibitive and may even run afoul of our system of justice by potentially detaining innocent people for an inordinate amount of time.

In short, the Sheriff of Okaloosa County is charged with upholding the Constitution and the Laws of the State of Florida, and at all times protect the citizens of Okaloosa County by enforcing the law with impartiality.

By:  Larry Ashley, Republican Candidate for Sheriff of Okaloosa County, Florida

May 28th, 2010