{"id":60113,"date":"2025-12-18T20:19:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T01:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=60113"},"modified":"2025-12-18T20:19:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T01:19:18","slug":"polk-county-deputies-to-ask-for-birthplace-under-new-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/12\/18\/polk-county-deputies-to-ask-for-birthplace-under-new-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County deputies to ask for birthplace under new policy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office is taking a new approach to assist in enforcing federal immigration laws, allowing deputies to ask people where they were born during law-enforcement encounters.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sheriff Grady Judd says the policy is meant to help federal authorities identify people who are in the country illegally, while ensuring there is no type of racial profiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThe whole emphasis of this is so that we don\u2019t encounter someone suing us and saying you\u2019re racially profiling, you\u2019re only asking people with brown skin,\u201d Judd said. \u201cAfter all, there are people illegally in this country with white skin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The change follows a state immigration law <\/a>signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis last February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senate Bill 2-C, passed during a special legislative session, requires state and local law-enforcement agencies to quote \u201cuse best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe law mandates that we help identify and turn over to ICE those that are in this country illegally and subject to deportation,\u201d Judd said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the policy, if someone tells deputies they were not born in the United States, Judd says the sheriff\u2019s office contacts Immigration and Customs Enforcement to verify their legal status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe then contact ICE with your identification, and we say, are they here legally or illegally,\u201d Judd said. \u201cIf they\u2019re here legally, we wish them a wonderful day. If they\u2019re here illegally and ICE says we want them, then we simply hold them and turn them over to ICE, and then they deal with the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The policy has prompted questions about protections under the Fourth Amendment<\/a>, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defense attorney Bryant Camareno says the amendment does not necessarily apply to questions about birthplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Fourth Amendment does protect you from privacy, but I think it was geared more toward illegal searches and seizures of your personal property,\u201d Camareno said. \u201cGiving biographical information, to me, in my opinion and my reading of the law, is not covered by the Fourth Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Camareno says the policy could still have broader impacts on community trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of fear amongst the Hispanic community and other members of the community that may not be here legally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Camareno added that his advice to anyone encountering law enforcement is to remain cooperative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy best advice to anyone when you\u2019re faced with a situation is try to cooperate as much as you can with law enforcement, otherwise law enforcement can complicate your life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judd maintains the policy will only be applied during consensual encounters or situations where deputies already have a legal reason to detain someone, and says his agency is acting within both state and federal law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a witness. You\u2019re a suspect. You receive a traffic citation. You\u2019re a victim. It\u2019s an easy question.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office is taking a new approach to assist in enforcing federal immigration laws, allowing deputies to ask people where they were born during law-enforcement encounters. Sheriff… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60114,"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":"23","_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","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMTJcL2p1ZGQtMS53ZWJwP2ZpdD0zMTAlMkMyMDEmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJQb2xrIENvdW50eSBkZXB1dGllcyB0byBhc2sgZm9yIGJpcnRocGxhY2UgdW5kZXIgbmV3IHBvbGljeSIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.WZ0MZbcRbpZvwFtRr6nWpfH4M5SZPDaVr903dAq1DMYMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":60114,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/judd-1.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[12927],"class_list":["post-60113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sheriffs-corner","tag-polk-county-deputies-to-ask-for-birthplace-under-new-policy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60113","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=60113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60115,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60113\/revisions\/60115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}