Ron DeSantis doesn’t just want to run for the presidency, the Florida governor seems to already have declared himself president as he tries to wrest clear federal responsibilities away from the U.S. government with a new Florida law that heavily penalizes employment of undocumented immigrants, gives state officials more authority to investigate potential immigration violations and forces hospitals to collect immigration status, among other things.
Almost 150 years ago, in 1875′s Chy Lung vs. Freeman, the Supreme Court established that regulating immigration was exclusively the domain of the national government, not states. That hasn’t stopped plenty of states from trying it anyway. Thirteen years ago, Arizona set off the modern wave of immigration organizing in enacting the disastrous SB 1070, most of which was eventually struck down by the Supreme Court as a violation of the Supremacy Clause.
More recently, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has taken it upon himself to appear tough on the border, sending National Guardsmen to an ill-fated and ultimately pointless deployment, almost setting off an international incident with Mexico over truck inspections, and of course busing migrants here and elsewhere without any coordination or notice.
Apparently envious of the havoc Abbott was wreaking, DeSantis joined the clown show, using a shadowy former Army counterintelligence agent to trick migrants into boarding planes bound for Martha’s Vineyard, paid for by a dedicated state fund that this law has now expanded. DeSantis seems wholly indifferent or apathetic to the fact that the consequences of his culture war are being suffered by his own state.
Since the law was enacted, there have been reports of employees fearful of returning to work in a variety of industries, and even attempting to arrange boycotts. The short-term impacts are still uncertain, but it seems clear that in the long run, Florida will lose out on the contributions of an important population, just as it will face a brain drain from DeSantis’ heavy-handed crackdown on academia and anti-business war with Disney. The governor doesn’t care; his eyes are set northwards, to Washington..
