Immigration reform

Many panel participants said the rules and objectives of both federal and state enforcement actions are often vague and even contradictory.

Commissioner Stasi Kamoutsas says teachers can be fired for expressing such sentiments in social media posts or on school property.

As budget talks start in Tallahassee, an early rift between the chambers involves the size of the emergency fund and a House bill that limits how it can be used.

Part of the House's budget package would bar the use of the governor's emergency fund for immigration enforcement. The Senate plan does not include restrictions.

The immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades was embroiled in controversy before it opened last summer, and environmentalists are fighting to shut it down.

A Leon County circuit judge wrote that the laws allow access to facilities such as state prisons and county jails — but not to the immigrant-detention center run by the state.

Five Democratic lawmakers filed the lawsuit in July after they made an unannounced visit to the facility in the Florida Everglades and were denied access.

Two men have been wrongly charged under a Florida immigration law that's currently suspended. The attorney general's office reported these charges Monday.

An appeals court panel decided in a 2-1 vote to stay the federal judge's order pending the full appeal. The judges in the majority said it was in the public interest.

Governor Ron DeSantis said during a Tuesday press conference he is in talks with law enforcement in Panama City about opening a third immigration detention facility there.