Santa Rosa Commissioner James Calkins ripped for anti-illegal immigration resolution

Santa Rosa County Commissioner James Calkins not only met fierce resistance to an anti-illegal immigration resolution he sought to have adopted Monday, but also to his purported political grandstanding and divisive campaign tactics .

Despite no one in the room speaking in favor of the document, titled "A resolution declaring that Santa Rosa County Florida does not welcome illegal aliens," it failed by just a slim 3-2 margin. Commission Chairman Sam Parker joined Calkins to support a version of the resolution amended to call on President Joe Biden to halt the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country at the southern border.

Commissioners Colten Wright and Kerry Smith took turns calling the proposed resolution a political stunt. They weren't the first of the day to use the term.

"Progress takes a step backwards when political stunts are used with immigration, or rather immigrants, as a platform," said Grace Resendez McCaffery. McCaffery is founder of a Hispanic Resource Center, an agency serving 21 Spanish speaking countries in Northwest Florida and South Alabama.

Spanish speakers are found in nearly every walk of life in Santa Rosa County, Resendez McCaffery reminded commissioners. She said there were people in attendance at the commission meeting who had moved beyond undocumented immigrant status to enter the military or become doctors, lawyers and teachers.

She shared a personal account of a mass shooting targeting Latinos near her home in Texas and recalled a 2019 shooting in Walton County's Miramar Beach when a man named Danny Baker, vowing to "start the revolution," shot into a townhome where 20 young Latino people were vacationing, killing two and injuring four.

"Violence against Latinos is not uncommon, especially when provoked by fear and hatred," Resendez McCaffery said.

Resendez McCaffrey was followed by a long line of fellow Latina speakers during the commission's public forum portion of the meeting. Each had stories of personal persecution to relay and all requested Calkins' resolution be quashed.

Jerry Couey, who is running against Calkins this year, called the resolution language "a dog whistle."

Wright, who along with Calkins and Parker is seeking re-election this year, declared his intent to defy Calkins' efforts despite attacks he said he was sure would be coming from his fellow commissioner's political allies. He was critical of Calkins' work ethic as an elected official.

"If you would put 5% of the effort that you put into this kind of stuff into actually doing the work, we would be in a much better place today," Wright said.

Wright added, "There's a difference in actually working with people to try to accomplish something rather than putting some BS resolution together to put the rest of us in a tough position, to leverage us to vote for something so we don't look bad, we don't look anti-American, anti-patriotic."

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He said the immigration issue is complicated enough without being politicized.

"One of the reasons immigration is so complicated is because there are people on both sides that use this ridiculous rhetoric and not a damn one of them actually wants to solve the problem," Wright said. "That happens in this board room and it happens in Tallahassee and at every other level of government."

One of the more recent instances of politics getting in the way of immigration legislation occurred in October when U.S. House Republicans refused to bring a significant reform package passed by a bi-partisan majority in the U.S. Senate to a vote. Former President Donald Trump, the presumed GOP presidential nominee, had urged House members to reject the measure.

Smith criticized the Calkins' resolution, which read in part "the federal government is intentionally violating asylum laws and spending billons of dollars in taxpayer funds to admit illegal immigrants, many of whom are serious criminals" but spent more time focused on Calkins' behavior as a commissioner.

"You have no clue how to govern. It's embarrassing what you do and don't know," he said.

He told Calkins twice to "shut up" as he spoke and remarked that working with him is "like talking to a child."

Calkins said he was shocked that anyone would actually oppose the resolution he had drawn up. He said he was sure 75% of Santa Rosa County residents would support the document. He accused some of his fellow commissioners, Republicans all, of being "full blown Rinos (Republicans in Name Only.)"

"If you don't vote against illegal aliens, you vote for illegal aliens," he said. "We're about one vote away from this board having a liberal majority."

He said Santa Rosa County Sheriff Bob Johnson supported the resolution he'd drawn up, to which Wright responded "someone is either lying or not being fully honest"

"The sheriff told me this is a hare-brained idea," Wright said.

Johnson responded by email to a request for response to Calkins' proposed resolution and disagreement among commissioners.

"The resolution submitted by Commissioner Calkins does not change the way Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office enforces the laws of the State of Florida. The Sheriff’s Office enforces the laws of the state of Florida without prejudice to the person’s citizenship status," Johnson said. "If an undocumented immigrant is arrested, the information is provided to the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) which is the governing body to make the determination on the person’s status."

In discussing his reasons for filing the resolution, Calkins said a constituent had emailed him to inform him about 120 military-age men "who looked like illegal aliens" who'd been dropped off at a truck stop in the Bagdad community. He said the resolution might help slow such behavior.

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Smith informed Calkins that he'd worked with a state representative and local law enforcement officials to identify the men mentioned. He'd learned, he said, that they were workers with valid visas heading South where jobs were waiting.

"These were people with H2A visas just passing through town on the way to South Florida. But you're going to use it as a spark 'We're getting invaded'" Smith said. "They were stopping to use the rest room."

When Commissioner Ray Eddington also signaled that he would not be supporting Calkins' resolution Parker tried to salvage a consensus by seeking support for a revised document. He suggested wording that would throw less blame for the current crisis at the border on those actually crossing it illegally and more toward the federal government he believes is encouraging the influx.

"I lay the blame at the feet of President Joe Biden," he said. "I 100% support sending a strong message to Joe Biden and the folks in Washington DC."

He recommended "slight modifications" to the language of the resolution.

"Hopefully we could pass it," he said.

Smith and Wright weren't having any thing to do with the suggested compromise. Smith said that while he doesn't like the way Biden is handling the border crisis, he in no way intended to support a resolution put forth in the manner Calkins proposal had been.

"No way I'm supporting this half-cocked resolution put together prior to a mailout," he said.

Wright said he too believed "President Joe Biden has done a terrible job" on border security and would be happy to sign a letter along with fellow commissioners to that effect, but he also was adamant he could not be convinced to go along with the proposed referendum.

"I can't be part of this stunt," he said. "All this is is an effort from one person trying to make himself look good and make others look bad."

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Santa Rosa Commissioner James Calkins ripped for anti-illegal immigration resolution