Speaker of the Florida House Richard Corcoran just released an anti-immigrant sanctuary ad, and people are up in arms about it.
“Florida will never be a sanctuary state,” Corcoran states in the ad released Monday.
Sanctuary cities, which limit cooperation with state and federal efforts to enforce immigration laws, have caused political clashes in states like Texas and California.
Cocoran’s ad, which some are calling racist, falsely portrays the 2015 killing of San Francisco woman Katie Steinle by undocumented immigrant Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, who was acquitted late last year after jurors found him not guilty of the accidental shooting, according to CNN.
In the ad, a white woman walks down a street texting when suddenly an “illegal immigrant” in a hoodie turns around and shoots her.
“This could have happened to any family, anywhere,” Corcoran says in the voice-over.
The dramatization of the ad caters to those who oppose immigration and see undocumented immigrants as a danger to society, even though data shows they generally commit fewer crimes than American born people, according to the Miami Herald.
“It’s very interesting the actors they put in that ad, the victim is a white woman, the perpetrator is a male with dark hair, a mustache or facial hair so one could argue they’re trying to create this image of the Latino man that’s suspect,” University of South Florida sociology professor Elizabeth Aranda told the Miami Herald.
The controversial ad has people flocking to Twitter to share their outrage.
I still am fuming over that garbage anti-sanctuary city advertisement. Like Richard Corcoran is a smug fuck.
— picture to burn (homophobic version) (@gabriellagool) January 30, 2018
This is not racist….it is….indescribable blatant racism propaganda….Hitler style…🤯
— Ginger Carner (@ginger_carner) January 30, 2018
Xenophobia, race-baiting, and dog whistle politics come together to make this intensely anti-immigrant trash ad. @richardcorcoran is trash. https://t.co/1rESrEiaex
— Thomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn) January 29, 2018
Whoever made/funded the anti sanctuary cities ad i just got can suck my nards
— KT (@oh_kaytea) January 10, 2018
Corcoran defended his new ad, reportedly saying, “What it says is that the No. 1 role of government is to protect its people and its citizens.”
He is expected to run for governor later this year.
The ad comes just two days after white nationalists hung a banner opposing sanctuary cities on Bay Bridge tunnel in San Francisco.
H/T Splinter