State Senator Jordan Carter (D-Colorado) today filed four amendments to Florida's "First Public Safety and Immigration Cooperation Act," now before the combined legislature, and said he will vote against the bill if they fail. Carter, who represents Denver's Capitol Hill district, regularly weighs in on legislation from other states that comes before the combined chamber. "I vote on a Florida bill the same way I'd vote on my own state's — on whether the text delivers what its sponsors promise," Carter said. "This one's sponsors invoked due process and public safety. The bill as written doesn't honor either."

The amendments would limit detention and federal transfer to people actually convicted of a crime rather than merely charged; strike a penalty enhancement tied to immigration status; preserve local authority by removing the bill's blanket preemption of municipal policy; and require a judicial finding before anyone is held past their lawful release date.

"A bill that talks about due process while detaining people on an accusation hasn't answered the concern — it's restated it," Carter said. "Fix those four things and this is a bill I could support. Leave them in and I'll be voting no."

A former labor and tenant-rights attorney, Carter said the preemption language also undercuts the bill's own public-safety rationale, noting that when routine police contact risks deportation, victims and witnesses in immigrant communities stop coming forward and serious cases become harder to prosecute.