ATLANTA — Andrea Hinojosa is an aid worker embedded in rural South Georgia’s immigrant farmworker communities.
Through the Southeast Georgia Communities Project, a nonprofit she founded in 1995, Hinojosa has for years driven undocumented farmworkers to doctor appointments in the Jacksonville, Fla. area, a medical hub for the region. The patients can’t go to the hospitals by themselves because they aren’t eligible for Georgia driver’s licenses.
Starting next month, the road trips to Jacksonville could land Hinojosa in jail – a product of a bill Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in May, which imposes criminal penalties and steep fines on people who transport immigrants without legal status into Florida. The move, which DeSantis said is aimed at restricting human smuggling, will have significant implications for the South Georgia immigrant communities who routinely cross into Florida for leisure, health care, or family reasons.
