Source of photo above
Undocumented Latinx immigrants, some of whom gave up well-established, prosperous lives, continue to pour out of Florida. As of late June Florida still was “being rocked by an exodus of migrant workers.” The exodus stems from the passage of a bill seemingly designed not only to delight bigots, but also to ensure economic hardship in Florida.
The new law, which took effect on July 1, is known as Senate Bill, or SB, 1718. It represents “a comprehensive effort to restrict the ability of undocumented individuals to live and work in Florida,” according to a law firm blog, but Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano called the measure “a grab bag of punitive proposals.”
Back in May numerous media outlets reported that undocumented immigrant workers were leaving Florida after the state’s governor (and flailing presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis signed SB 1718. “Videos of empty workplaces” went viral. A TikTok video showing a large Miami construction site commented that SB 1718
is going to make it impossible for undocumented people to work ... so they need to send 300 U.S. citizens to come work here instead.
These concerns have been heightened now that the law has gone into effect. SB 1718 “is creating incentives for people to leave Florida and find work in other states,” Samuel Vilchez, Florida director of the American Business Immigration Coalition, told USA Today.
NBC News related the story of one family with U.S.-citizen children and undocumented adults from Guatemala, who felt compelled to pack up their two trucks and a car and head for Maryland, leaving behind beds, mattresses, furniture, children’s toys and even some construction tools one of the adults in the family used in his successful Florida business.
One family member said that in Maryland one “can breathe peace and tranquility,” while Florida’s SB 1718 made him feel “like a rat.” A Colombian national who left Florida for New York said she now does not “feel persecuted because of my race.”
The law criminalizes “as human smugglers” those who “knowingly and willfully” cross a state line into Florida “with people they know, or reasonably should know, are undocumented,” reports the ACLU. The measure defines as “undocumented” a person who has “entered the United States in violation of the law and has not been inspected by the federal government.” It does not define the term “inspected.” The law also invalidates out-of-state driver’s licenses issued to undocumented immigrants. Violation of the new law is punishable by up to five years in prison, the ALCU adds.
The law
includes harsh penalties for those who try and hire or transport undocumented migrants, which critics say can include family members. It also requires hospitals that receive Medicaid funds to ask for a patient's immigration status.
The law prompted Domingo Garcia, president of the venerable Latinx rights group League of United Latin American Citizens (known as LULAC), to warn,
“you can be arrested for literally taking somebody to the hospital, for literally taking somebody to Disney World,”
a fact that has turned Florida into
a dangerous, hostile environment for law-abiding Americans and immigrants.
As a result, LULAC, for only the second time in its history, issued a travel advisory for anyone traveling to Florida.
The effects this law appear to linger beyond the original alarm it raised when enacted in May. Earlier this month CBS News reported,
"We are hearing people are starting to leave," Yvette Cruz with the Farmworkers Association of Florida told CBS News of reports of migrant workers abandoning fields and construction projects. "We're just gonna keep seeing that more as the law will take effect."
The economic impact of DeSantis’s bigotry bill has been well-reported. For example, DK recently reported on Florida’s loss of convention business. An earlier DK article, entitled, “Florida farmer: ‘My Mexicans are great, the other ones suck,’” told of rapidly emptying fields and U.S.-born replacements who were not up to the task, even if they managed to last a day in the suffocating heat. A farmer commented that U.S. citizens “come out, work two or three hours, and [say] ‘Whew, I’ve had it and I can’t take this anymore.’”
One Florida farmer – who (when not expressing adulation for Trump or DeSantis) apparently was trying to downplay the years-in-prison consequences one who violates SB 1718 could face – told MSNBC,
“This bill is 100% supposed to scare you. I’m a farmer, and the farmers are mad as hell. We are losing employees. They’re already starting to move to Georgia and other states.
L.A. Times columnist Arellano referred to the “bigoted brouhaha” surrounding SB 1718 as “the latest grandchild of Proposition 187,” a 1994 California ballot initiative that
sought to make life miserable for immigrants here illegally by denying them access to public education, social services and healthcare, and forcing government workers to turn them in.
A federal judge ruled most of Prop 187 unconstitutional, and the ballot initiative that represented GOP former governor Pete Wilson’s attempt to please the racists ended up waking up California’s huge Latinx population and turning the state deep blue. To those of us who remember Proposition 187, the comment on SB 1718 offered by LULAC representative Lydia Guzmán rings familiar:
Laws like this, that do nothing more than harass immigrants, are bad for a state’s economy.