The Shiny faction likes to put people in the position of trying to prove a negative, like demanding Saddam prove he has no WMDs. Iraq provided a mountain of documentation, that the POTUS rejected, and invaded anyway.
Shiny-land has a long history of prosecuting people for “driving while black”. Why not prosecute a bus driver for having Hispanics on the bus. How can the driver prove he is ignorant of their status? The only defense for the driver, is to have proof his passengers are not illegals.
Again, the prosecution had a case that could stand the laugh test with the auction cars. Having a non-trivial amount of cocaine in your car is a very unlikely scenario. You can get past a judge by arguing that the claim that the cocaine was there from a previous owner is a lie, and that it’s much more likely that the cocaine is there because the owner put it there.
There’s no such argument for a random bus driver just because someone on their bus turned out to be undocumented. There probably isn’t a single bus route in any sizable city that doesn’t have at least one undocumented person ride it each day. A prosecutor can’t possibly argue that the presence of an undocumented person on a given bus is so unlikely that the bus driver’s active participation is the only credible explanation, and therefore knowledge and intent has been met.
This is Shiny-land. The intent is to encourage racial profiling on the part of the bus driver. Make the driver so fearful of prosecution that he doesn’t allow Hispanics on the bus, unless they can prove their legal status.
That’s just…crazy. A quarter of the population of Florida is Hispanic. Unlike some other states, the GOP wants and needs Hispanic voters in order to win statewide offices - a big reason that De Santis beat Gillum in 2018 was because he was able to roll up more Hispanic votes in central Florida than prior candidates.
There is no possible way that bus drivers could racially profile riders, even if they wanted to. They have no discretion to turn down passengers or ask them for anything other than a fare.
You are making a logical but false statement that the Latinos in Florida would not be targeted.
You are even buffered from the concept that you would not be targeted. That is not true in the longer run.
Political retribution is retribution, there are specific targets for a while then anyone can be targeted.
At first under Stalin you turned in your neighbor. Then you turned in your parents.
But we have established there will be targeting at times in blue areas of the state. It all has to start somewhere. You have even stated there will be discretion.
But not on the part of bus drivers. They don’t get to choose who rides. There’s no mechanism for them to do this.
There’s lots of opportunities for selective enforcement of all kinds of laws. But the officials who have those opportunities are higher up the food chain than frontline government workers like a bus driver.
Of course there is, that little gold star on your driver’s license. Enforcement has been put off, a few times, but, ultimately, you will not be able to board a domestic airline flight without it.
So the bus driver asks to see the same thing, on either a driver’s license or state ID, to let you on the bus.
There was a lot of chatter, about ten years ago, about making life so miserable for illegals that they will “self deport”. Just how far Shiny-land needs to go to be worse than Guatemala, I don’t know.
(ignore the name named in this article. I am using is as an example of a widespread narrative)
And if the legislature had passed a law that allowed them to do that, I would agree that would be a concern. But they didn’t. The bus driver - unlike the airlines - has no legal authority to refuse you from boarding if you don’t have an ID.
Certainly that’s the likely goal of a number of the other provisions of the law - like not recognizing drivers licenses of undocumented folks, for example. You don’t need to be worse than Guatemala - you just need to be worse for undocumented folks than Nevada or New York, so that they would prefer to live there than in Florida.
But this particular provision isn’t going to result in any change in how ordinary transportation workers do their jobs. It’s going to make it all-but-impossible for charities and immigrant advocacy groups to relocate the undocumented to Florida, or to provide transportation services to such clients who are in Florida. But your typical bus or uber driver isn’t going to do anything different.
There has been mention of a government website (software) that checks the “papers/documentation” … That the employers are supposed to use to verify the status of the employees?
Ah, yes, here is the “mentioned” website:
–the federal E-Verify system to verify a new employee’s employment eligibility, starting on July 1.–
IOT… (Internet of Things; Uber connectivity)
Perhaps DeSantis and thugs will right a law that requires a “doc” reader on every bus, in every taxi/Uber?
Instant verification of status?
For EVERYONE who boards?
LOLOL 2024 is the new 1984?
Will this “instant verify” law apply to the entry door/gate to factories, farms, restaurants, etc?
The Legislature could pass a law that says that bus drivers have to check the immigration status of passengers. But that’s not the law today. Bus drivers don’t have the authority to check the immigration status of passengers.
This is a different situation from those where “racial profiling” can be commonly implemented - such as with police encounters. The police have enormous, almost unlimited, discretion in who they decide to walk up to and start asking questions of. They have the ability to exercise that discretion in ways that create more encounters with people of one race than another. Bus drivers don’t have that discretion.
I disagree, that is where this all is headed. If you want to drive illegals out of your state what better way to do it than make bus drivers check your license. Hey if you need a license to vote, now you need a license to stay in the state. What does this all remind everyone of, comrade?
Twenty years ago, when I wrote the “General Rant” about the US becoming a police state, I would not have believed the things that are now law in the Shinier parts of the country. I would not have believed the things some states are doing to people and entities that don’t toe the line.
I would not bet the farm on bus drivers not being required to perform the same doc check that Federal law will require of airlines, or even being allowed to check docs out of fear of being prosecuted for aiding and abetting an illegal.
Likely a crime. In order to traverse Florida, you have to enter Florida. Knowingly transporting undocumented people into the state would be a crime - there’s nothing in the statute that limits that crime based on their length of stay, actual or intended. The crime is “smuggling” them into the state, not whether they resettle here.
