The Florida House passed a sweeping immigration bill Wednesday that aims to destroy "sanctuary cities" by investigating and penalizing municipalities, counties and sheriffs that fail to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

In an 80-38 vote, state House representatives approved HB 675, which requires local governments to detain people believed to be undocumented immigrants, while granting the governor the power to remove local officials from office if they don't comply.

Florida Rep. Larry Metz said he authored the bill after a woman in California was fatally shot by a Mexican immigrant last year. Although federal immigration authorities want to detain the man, he was released earlier in 2015 by the San Francisco Sheriff's Department, not long before the murder.

"It was a sort of a very tragic reminder of what can happen when we have sanctuary policies and we certainly don't want that to happen anywhere,'' Metz said, according to NBC South Florida.

In addition to eliminating sanctuary city policies, Metz's bill allows the families of people killed by undocumented immigrants to sue the local government. Plus, under the bill, the governor could remove officials in those communities from office, if they do not make an effort to repeal those policies.

"We have a problem that we have to build walls to keep people out of our country because we're the greatest country in the world," said the Republican state representative, reports The Miami Herald. "Without both border security and internal enforcement, the system breaks down, and to fix it, we have to do our part in the state of Florida."

Supporters say the legislation will ensure federal laws are followed and crack down on "sanctuary cities" by punishing local officials who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration agencies. Opponents, however, argue that the bill would discourage immigrants from working with local law enforcement agencies.

Democratic Rep. Joe Geller even went as far as describing the bill as "an assault on people who choose to migrate here."

Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez pointed out that implementing the measure comes with a hefty price that falls on local governments. For instance, Miami-Dade County would have to spend millions to detain undocumented immigrants who commit nonviolent crimes, he said.

On the other hand, supporters dismiss claims that the bill targets the state's immigrant population.

"This bill is not an assault on immigrants," said Republican Rep. Julio Gonzalez. "This bill is only to protect the very reasons why immigrants come to this country: to seek freedom."

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