Rep. Berny Jacques: Florida will deal with criminal aliens ‘harshly’ under new laws

TAMPA, Fla. – Rep. Berny Jacques, R-Seminole, touted new anti-illegal immigration laws he helped push this year, along with discussing the state’s increasingly Republican trends.

Jacques told Florida’s Voice at the Florida Young Republicans 2024 State Convention that he worked on “every immigration bill,” partnering with his colleague Rep. Kiyan Michael, R-Jacksonville, during both this year and last year’s session.

Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed three bills aimed at further cracking down on illegal immigration and illegal aliens in Florida.

Jacques said HB 1451 removes the ability of local governments to accept IDs that are being issued by nonprofit organizations to illegal immigrants. Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, sponsored the Senate version of the bill. The legislation will take effect July 1.

Another bill Jacques carried with Michael in the House increases penalties for illegal aliens who commit crimes in the state after already having been deported for being there illegally.

“These are people who have been deported and came back across the open Biden borders and went on to commit more crimes,” Jacques said.

Ingoglia carried the Senate version, SB 1036, which was approved by the governor and will take effect Oct. 1.

The legislation increases the severity of each degree of felony by one degree: a third degree would become a second degree, a second degree a first degree, and a first degree turns into a life felony.

“They will be dealt with more harshly with more penalties for crimes they commit when they come back to Florida, if they come back to Florida, which I don’t think they will because we’re pretty tough here,” Jacques said.

The representative said currently, America is seeing “nothing short of an invasion.”

“That’s what it is,” he said. “And in fact, a recent poll showed that most Floridians and most Americans believe what’s happening at the border is an invasion, and we have to stop it. And Florida has to remove the incentives for illegal aliens to come to our state.”

Jacques is a legal immigrant from Haiti and said there is a “right way and a wrong way” to come into the country.

“One of the things that most legal immigrants hate is when people cut the line when they see what they’ve had to go through, what their family members have had to go through,” Jacques said.

The representative said there is a “pride to become an American when you do it the right way.”

Jacques assumed office in 2022 and said during the two legislative sessions he has worked through, DeSantis has signed 12 out of 16 bills that the representative has worked on.

The representative said he hopes the governor will sign the last four.

“The governor is a great conservative, so I expect him to sign all of them,” Jacques said. “The first session, we passed nine, we went nine for nine, and this go around, we did seven bills, and we expect to get seven signed.”

Pinellas County, which is part of Jacques’ area, has flipped from blue to red by registration, and Hillsborough County, is also on the verge of flipping red.

Jacques said he is “not surprised” to see those counties flip because he and his conservative colleagues are “leading boldly.”

“Under the leadership of our great governor and our state legislature,. we’ve been able to pursue some bold conservative policies that people are waking up and seeing the benefits of those conservative policies,” he said.

He pointed to what people saw during the “COVID tyranny” when Florida was “able to stay open” and people were fleeing from other states.

“We have refugees from America leaving blue states and woke jurisdictions to come to Florida because we are the land of freedom and opportunity,” Jacques said. “And so that’s going to reflect in the registration numbers. People want to be Republican now because they associate that party with preserving their freedom.”