Rules of the Road: A Brief Guide for Latinos in Florida

Daily routines like driving to work, the grocery store, and even church have become more perilous since Florida deputized Highway Patrol officers to detain drivers based on suspicion of their immigration status. This new circumstance makes detention loom large for many Latinos during a routine traffic stop, regardless of their legal status. And the situation can quickly devolve into the start of the deportation process.

Below are the actual rules recommended by immigrants themselves to follow.

Five New Rules of the Road for Immigrants

1. No foreign flags in the car. No Spanish language stickers or advertisements on the car.

It feels as if America’s melting pot will soon burn beyond recognition. Authoritarian laws have people fearing the end of the lives they have arduously built in America. Their fear of being separated forever from their families, or of being locked up in an Alcatraz-like building in the Everglades surrounded by alligators, is all too real.

2. Know and trust the car’s driver, who should be in the country legally.

In your best English, calmly ask why you have been stopped. Ask for due process even if it feels futile. Have a lawyer or immigrant organization at the ready on your cell phone and call them as soon as you hear a siren close by and see blue lights behind you.

3. No Spanish language music in the car. Speak English only and play country music.

Tune the radio to an American station. There can be no Spanish music or Spanish radio talk of any kind. Why country music? Maybe because it’s perceived as typical American music, less likely to arouse suspicion.

4. Don’t drive or ride in white cargo vans. They are associated with immigrants.

Immigrants are often driven to job sites in white cargo vans. Don’t get into one. Also, do not linger on street corners waiting to be picked up for day jobs.

5. Don’t wear a cap or uniform in your car. It telegraphs that you work in landscaping, cleaning, or construction – common jobs for immigrants.

If the name of the landscaping company or construction site is on the cap or the shirt of a uniform, the immigrant workers in those places could also become sitting ducks. ICE or the Florida Highway Patrol could easily swoop in and arrest everyone on site.

My Unspoken Rules When Confronted by ICE and Law Enforcement

1. Do not cry.

2. Do not pray, especially in Spanish. It leaves you vulnerable.

3. Be polite to the authorities just like your Papi and Mami were.

4. Make yourself small to these authorities like your Papi and Mami did.

5. Do not talk or even whisper amongst yourselves – it sounds conspiratorial.

6. Answer in full sentences so you’re not marked as a troublemaker.

7. Be humble.

8. Trust in God.

9. It may be hard to believe right now, but trust that America will right itself.