Florida’s Chief Financial Officer, Blaise Ingoglia, is spearheading a legislative push aimed at tightening immigration policies in the state. In collaboration with fellow Republican lawmakers, he is advocating for a slate of proposed laws designed to address the contentious issue of illegal immigration, a subject poised to dominate the upcoming legislative session.
The proposed legislation includes eight distinct measures, each targeting various aspects of immigration policy. Among these, one particularly significant proposal seeks to limit the languages available for testing when obtaining a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL). This measure could have far-reaching consequences, affecting not only undocumented immigrants but also a broader swath of the population.
Florida Republicans have declared the situation a state emergency, citing the presence of approximately 1.2 million undocumented immigrants within the state, with a notable concentration of 89,000 individuals residing in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties. However, Democrats criticize this approach, arguing that Republicans are exploiting their emergency powers for political gain.
Beyond the CDL testing language restriction, the proposed laws cover a range of topics. They include measures to prevent immigrants from accessing down payment assistance programs and requiring businesses that hire undocumented workers to bear the financial burden of any workplace injuries those workers might incur.
This legislative initiative underscores the growing urgency and divisiveness of immigration policy in Florida, highlighting the stark differences between Republican and Democratic perspectives on how to handle the issue effectively and humanely.
But of the eight laws, one has broader implications, impacting more than just undocumented immigrants.
Ingoglia is seeking to prohibit all commercial driver’s license instruction and testing from being given in any language other than English. That law, specifically, is the only one of the eight that makes no mention of immigration status but instead targets language.
It comes amid a national push for stricter oversight of CDL training programs after a deadly crash on the Florida Turnpike in August killed three people. The Florida Attorney General’s Office said the driver, who was undocumented, failed a commercial driver’s license test 10 times in the span of two months in 2023 before he was ultimately issued a license. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said the driver could not speak English and could not read the road signs.
All road testing must currently be done in English, but written tests and coursework can be administered in a different language.
Critics of the crackdown say they believe legislation like Ingoglia’s proposal targets legal immigrants just as much as it does illegal immigrants.
“Quite frankly, I think it’s a xenophobic law that’s meant to target immigrants indiscriminately,” said Thomas Kennedy with the Florida Immigrant Coalition. “There’s people here on asylum and refugee protections that don’t speak English. There’s people here that are legal permanent residents that don’t speak English very well.”
Kennedy also argues that to prevent accidents from happening like the one in August, the focus should be on drivers understanding the course, rather than the language that it’s taught in.
“There’s safe driving courses all over the world taught in all types of languages,” he said.
10 Tampa Bay News pressed the CFO on this during his visit to Tampa on Wednesday.
“It’s a safety concern when we have illegal immigrants and immigrants on our roads who cannot read the language and read the signs on the roads that we are giving them the privilege to drive on,” Ingoglia said. “We’re not going to go and change all of our signs in the great state of Florida.”
Kennedy disagreed with the road sign argument.
“It’s literally designed so you don’t have to sit there and read it because that would be dangerous,” he said.
The Commercial Vehicle Trucking Association, which is the largest association of professional truck driver training programs in the United States, sided with Ingoglia’s efforts but said the reason they want an English requirement is for uniformity.
“Trucking is an outstanding American profession and one that should be accessible to Americans of every stripe that are willing to meet the requirements. As a nation of immigrants, America should embrace new citizens that learn English as they’re arriving here or while they’re here,” CVTA Executive Director Andrew Poliakoff said in a statement.
“But over the past years there has been lax enforcement of English Language Proficiency requirements, coupled with state licensing agencies that paid increasingly less attention to who they were granting commercial drivers licenses to,” Poliakoff added.
“Everyone understands that the ability to respond and react in English is necessary to pass the skills test, that is, the driving test to become a commercial driver. But presently, the commercial learner’s permit test, the written test, can be administered in languages other than English,” the CVTA executive director said. “Given the grave circumstances that have caused the acute examination of the rules governing CDL licensing, it is difficult if not impossible to understand why the Commercial Learners Permit should be any different.”
“The overwhelming burden should be on those recommending non-English testing for any CDL element. If English proficiency is the rule, then proficiency in both written test taking and speaking should be the norm to ensure that there are no loopholes to allow test takers to arrive at the driving test with little to no English skills,” Poliakoff stated.
The legislative session is set to begin on Jan. 13.
