Florida’s Red Wall on Immigration Is Starting to Crack

Cracks are widening in the Republican Party’s support for the Trump administration’s hardline approach to immigration enforcement. The latest fissure developed this week in deep-red Florida. A panel of Republican sheriffs and chiefs of police, the backbone of Florida’s law enforcement establishment, agreed on Monday to draft a letter to President Donald Trump and congressional leaders urging them to stop rounding up immigrants who they said arrived in the U.S. “inappropriately” but have otherwise lived law-abiding lives.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, chairman of the State Immigration Enforcement Council, argued that Congress should provide undocumented immigrants “who are being very productive” with “a path forward” because “These are the folks we need in this country.”