Now they are trying to prevent FHP from nabbing those who are breaking the law. At least they can't play the race card as a large number of FHP officers are black. This is especially the case in Miami Dade County.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breakin ... 77409.html

Immigration activists criticize FHP
Posted on Fri, Oct. 19, 2007
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com
Immigration advocates and community activists in Homestead criticized the Florida Highway Patrol for its role in a traffic stop of a Mexican couple that was later deported and separated from their 11-year-old son.

Speaking at a news conference in Homestead, Carlos Pereira, an attorney who represents the Mexican consulate, said his firm planned to send letters to the FHP and federal immigration agencies to complain about the handling of the incident.

The couple and a male friend were stopped on Sept. 22 by a trooper who asked about their immigration status. When husband Constantino Vásquez-Tapia couldn't produce a driver's license, the officer called U.S. Border Patrol authorities, who then took the couple and placed them in a detention facility in Pompano Beach.

The couple and their 11-year-old were reunited on Thursday when U.S. authorities accompanied the boy on a flight to the parent's hometown of Morelia, Mexico.

The case illustrates the controversy about the proper role of local and state police in detaining undocumented migrants during routine traffic stops -- an issue that remains unsettled because there is no uniform Florida policy about when local law enforcement can ask immigrants if they are in the country illegally.

Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, and undocumented status is not a criminal offense.

Maj. Ernesto Duarte, an FHP spokesman, said it is state troopers' practice to contact immigration authorities if, during traffic stops, they encounter foreign nationals who admit to being in the country illegally or who are suspected of not having proper immigration documents.

''Our troopers are not actively seeking illegal immigrants,'' Duarte said.