Florida’s newest crackdown on illegal migrants doesn’t take effect for weeks, but already the legislation is uprooting families and unsettling key pillars of Florida’s economy. It’s another reminder of how poorly we treat the powerless who take some of the most difficult jobs, and of the price that communities, employers and consumers face so that Republican leaders can weaponize their nationalist agenda. Florida needs to change course with immigration policies that are both humane and promote the state’s own interests.
The new law that goes into effect July 1 makes it harder and riskier for some employers to hire immigrants who entered the country illegally. It expands the worker verification process and requires that businesses with 25 or more employees use E-Verify, an online citizenship check. The legislation prohibits local governments from funding programs that provide ID cards to people who “do not provide proof of lawful presence in the United States,” and it invalidates driver’s licenses that those migrants obtain from other states. The measure creates a third-degree felony for knowingly transporting such immigrants into Florida, and it requires major hospitals to collect a patient’s immigration status and to report those caseloads to the state.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has seized the border crisis as a defining issue in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. But whereas the law is a talking point in the 2024 campaign, its impacts in Florida are affecting real people. Hispanic groups organized demonstrations in Tampa and other Florida cities, warning the law would harm the economy. As the Tampa Bay Times’ Juan Carlos Chavez reported, viral videos showing abandoned farms and construction projects have sprung up on social media. Latino truck drivers also called for a suspension of deliveries to and from Florida on the day the law takes effect.
Elda Chafoya, who grew up in Guatemala, avoided detection for years as she followed the crop harvests throughout the American South. She eventually settled in Florida, finding steady work in the fields and renting a home in Wimauma, in southern Hillsborough County. Chafoya had hoped to find some peace — only to learn of the latest crackdown. Now she’s thinking of leaving Florida with her three American-born daughters. “It’s a survival mode,” she said.
The law won’t ease the pressure on the border, or cause Florida’s economy to collapse. But it already has created more anxiety for undocumented families — many of whom have lived in and contributed to Florida for years — and brought greater uncertainty to the job market in key state industries.
The 1.8 million immigrants in Florida, including those without permanent status, represent 11% of the total labor force, but they make up 37% of the workforce in agriculture; 23% in construction; and 14% in service jobs, according to a recent KFF Health News analysis of a 2021 U.S. census report. Migrants pick the produce we eat and build the subdivisions that grow our communities. They clean the hotels so essential to Florida tourism. And they do the everyday, back-breaking work that most Americans refuse to do, from maintaining pools and lawns to installing roofs under the merciless Florida sun.
The law also coincides with an increased demand for labor, after years of economic disruption caused by COVID-19. The labor crunch is pronounced in Florida’s agricultural sector, which employs thousands of people each year in counties such as Hillsborough, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach. More than 311,000 immigrants in Florida work in construction. A study by the liberal policy group Center for American Progress found that immigrants help meet important labor needs without taking jobs away from U.S.-born workers. They pay taxes yet are ineligible for most federal public benefits. A 2020 study examining Texas, funded by the research arm of the U.S. Justice Department, also found that immigrants living in the country illegally had substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses.
Migrants, immigration activists and employers told the Times they are bracing for an exodus when the law takes effect, as worried immigrants take their families north, disrupting lives and worsening Florida’s labor shortage. “We don’t want to leave,” 60-year-old Miguel Perez said of he and his wife’s decision. “But we feel safer somewhere else.”
This senseless pain hurts all Floridians, and for what?
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Editorials are the institutional voice of the Tampa Bay Times. The members of the Editorial Board are Editor of Editorials Graham Brink, Sherri Day, Sebastian Dortch, John Hill, Jim Verhulst and Chairman and CEO Conan Gallaty. Follow @TBTimes_Opinion on Twitter for more opinion news.
