{"id":55165,"date":"2025-04-11T20:46:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T00:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=55165"},"modified":"2025-04-11T20:47:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T00:47:57","slug":"emergency-management-head-quietly-told-local-officials-to-gather-data-on-immigrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/04\/11\/emergency-management-head-quietly-told-local-officials-to-gather-data-on-immigrants\/","title":{"rendered":"Emergency management head quietly told local officials to gather data on immigrants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The head of Florida\u2019s Division of Emergency Management sent a memo last week ordering local officials to gather personal data about immigrants they suspected of living in the country without authorization, even those who aren\u2019t arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, fields questions from reporters at the state emergency operations center in Tallahassee in advance of a winter weather event on Jan. 21, 2025. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester\/Florida Phoenix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

DEM Director Kevin Guthrie\u2019s previously unreported directive went too far for sheriffs in the new State Immigration Enforcement Council, who told Florida Phoenix <\/em>they found out about the agency\u2019s involvement in data collection for immigration enforcement after the memo went into effect on April 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Law enforcement stopped implementation of the March 31 memo after sheriffs voiced their objections. Police would\u2019ve had to file forms including people\u2019s addresses, employers, phone numbers, criminal history, and picture, if they suspected a person they came in contact with lacked legal status in this country, according to the memo obtained by the Phoenix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DEM also required data collection when police questioned but didn\u2019t detain or arrest someone. The statute <\/a>cited in the memo gives the emergency management agency authority to collect data on major fires, airplane crashes, bomb threats, natural disasters, and other large-scale incidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheriffs oppose data sharing DEM proposed<\/p>\n\n\n

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Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, who chairs the immigration enforcement council, said during the group\u2019s second meeting Wednesday that Guthrie\u2019s directive contained a \u201cfatal flaw\u201d \u2014 it skipped the local law enforcement chains of command, blocking them from supervising their officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey were just eager to collect the data. Once again, there was no malice,\u201d Judd said in a phone interview with the Phoenix<\/em> Wednesday. \u201cIt was just everybody wanting to be game-on and immediately respond to the mission that was given to us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judd agreed that data collection should be narrower and only for people the federal government lacks information on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to get our sea legs under us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sensitivity of the data sought also concerned Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who said the state shouldn\u2019t aim to duplicate information the federal government already has. Senate President Ben Albritton nominated Gualtieri to the council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was clunky, because we don\u2019t submit information, especially some of that information in there is confidential information like criminal history information, that we would be prohibited by law from submitting to emergency managers,\u201d Gualtieri said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The head of Florida\u2019s Division of Emergency Management sent a memo last week ordering local officials to gather personal data about immigrants they suspected of living in the country without… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDRcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtODctMy1wbmcud2VicD9maXQ9NTU3JTJDNDEzJnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiRW1lcmdlbmN5IG1hbmFnZW1lbnQgaGVhZCBxdWlldGx5IHRvbGQgbG9jYWwgb2ZmaWNpYWxzIHRvIGdhdGhlciBkYXRhIG9uIGltbWlncmFudHMiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.flSTg6wRqns1Y10BBfOZmjkZQ-zIJmy6zT0BwshGwbIMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":55166,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-87-3-png.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[11315],"class_list":["post-55165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-emergency-management-head-quietly-told-local-officials-to-gather-data-on-immigrants"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55167,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55165\/revisions\/55167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}