How state should handle sanctuary cities.

Are you an immigrant? Unless the answer is yes, you may not be in tune with the convoluted process of applying for a Social Security card, a Green Card, or even U.S. citizenship.

There might be this picture in your head of a neat queue line, where immigrants wait for their turn to actually apply for any kind of immigration status. The line you imagine is long, like many things dealing with our government, but immigrants wishing to be part of this country must “wait their turn like everybody else” so you accept the line as real and move on.

Well, I am here to tell you that no such line exists. In fact, even when immigrants wait in “line,” there’s still a chance their case may be denied and the years they spent building a life in the United States, paying taxes, working hard and integrating into society goes down the drain.

I know this, because it is exactly what happened to my family and me, six years after arriving in the United States from Venezuela.

That is why when I witness states attempting to legislate on immigration issues, I'm immediately interested, due to possible personal impact. This is true with policies like Florida’s House Bill 9 — a draconian anti-immigrant law that would do more harm than good to our great state.

This year, Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran has adopted HB 9 as a pet project — a nudge to the Republican extreme right. Unfortunately, what Corcoran and his fellow anti-immigrant hawks like Republican Larry Metz of Yalaha fail to understand is that HB 9 does nothing to resolve the issue of immigration and would not make Florida’s communities any safer.

One only has to look as far as Texas to see the poisonous effects that anti-sanctuary legislation has had on the state. Immigrant children with special needs pulled out hospitals by Border Patrol agents, immigrant parents afraid of seeking medical attention for their U.S.-citizen children, and rampant fear that prevents immigrants from reporting crime.

Even worse, the arguments presented in defense of HB 9 are flawed. Corcoran mischaracterized the results of a University of California-Riverside study, claiming that the findings state that there’s virtually no difference in crime between jurisdictions with sanctuary policies and those without. This is misleading, and it was refuted by the authors of the study in an analysis piece published in the Washington Post last July, right after Attorney General Jeff Sessions used the same study to justify the administration’s crackdown on sanctuary jurisdictions.

Furthermore, using jurisdictions like Phoenix as examples of where immigration enforcement has worked is nothing short of misdirection. As of 2016, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, the perpetual civil-rights abuser who used his position to racially profile immigrants, arrest them and turn them over to federal authorities, was found in contempt of court. Is this the type of behavior we want from local law enforcement in Florida?

Here’s the truth about sanctuary cities: They promote cooperation between immigrant communities and local law-enforcement agencies in order to report crimes across local communities. There are studies documenting the fact that sanctuary policies yield safer and more prosperous communities than those without. And formal sanctuary jurisdictions are nonexistent across Florida. Even Miami-Dade rolled back its policies after Republican Mayor Carlos Giménez caved to Donald Trump’s threat of cutting funding to jurisdictions with sanctuary politics — something we now know is not possible thanks to a recent ruling from a federal judge.

The Legislature needs to work with the immigrant community instead of demonizing it for cheap political points. Lawmakers can begin by looking for actual facts and figures on immigration, understand how broken the federal immigration system is, and stop inviting leaders of hate groups to give presentations on immigration to Florida House members.

Maybe then Florida will be prepared to create and benefit from sensible immigration policy.

Lawmakers should look for actual facts and figures on immigration.