In a few weeks, if everything goes as planned, the situation Florida will be one of the most uninhabitable places for illegal immigrants – and maybe legal – from all over the United States.
That’s thanks to a new bill passed by the House of Representatives and pending in the Senate, which is sure to go smoothly given the Republican Party’s control over the Legislature.
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It is an initiative supported by the governor. Ron DeSantis under the premise that their states cannot be a haven for such undocumented populations.
The measures are currently described as the most restrictive measures approved in the country in almost 15 years, and are comparable only to laws introduced in the past decade by Arizona and Texas, the two states bordering Mexico.
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rudely, Penalties of up to 5 years are foreseen in the measures. for any person illegally carrying, hosting or employing. Likewise, they require hospitals to learn the immigration status of their patients and share this information with the authorities. Driver’s licenses issued to illegals by other states are also invalidated and persons without legal status are barred from entering the state bar (Florida Bar).
Parallel, DeSantis is pushing other laws that would prevent illegals, including so-called dreamers or teenagers who came to the country irregularly, from accessing the discounted rates offered by universities. to state residents. Something that’s been legal in Florida for almost 10 years after another Republican governor (now Senator Rick Scott) let it go.
The argument of DeSantis and those who support the measures is that illegals become a burdensome cost to the state, which results in subsidizing the education and health expenditures of those who break the law, while simultaneously shrinking the labor market.
Meanwhile, they argue there is a way to deal with the record wave of immigrants coming to the US from the southern border, many of whom have settled in Florida.
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According to government data, Health insurance costs for undocumented immigrants alone are more than $300 million per year. and similar figures are recorded in the bills of public schools paid by their children.
“We are not an anti-immigrant state. But there are laws in this country and there is a right and a wrong way to get there. “We are not trying to harm or hurt anyone who has been here illegally recently,” said State Senator Debbie Mayfield.
While the measures may seem meaningful on paper, in practice they create a lot of uncertainty and fear.
as it is written, the law makes transporting an illegal alien a third-degree crime with up to 5 years in prison. But this includes jail time, for example, for someone born in the United States to illegally transfer a parent or relative, or for a lawyer who takes his client to immigration court.
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The same thing happens with hosting penalties: the owner of an apartment or house goes behind bars for leasing the property to an illegal family. or where any of its members are illegal. To put it in context, it’s estimated that around 800,000 legal residents live in the state illegally.
When it comes to employers, the same thing happens: they have to verify a person’s legal status before they can get hired, something that isn’t always easy. But even more complex, as Florida and its huge tourism and service industry depend on this population to meet their needs, many in the industry began to complain.
“What makes DeSantis look good in the eyes of the far-right in a presidential election may be the most devastating and damaging thing he can do to his own state in terms of employment,” Mike Fernandez, who runs a private equity firm, told The New York Times. The group is based in Florida and is a member of the American Business Immigration Coalition, a bipartisan group of national business leaders that advocates for a cohesive national immigration strategy.
Another issue of greatest concern is the obligation on doctors and hospitals to report illegal immigrants.. While the law does not prevent them from providing services, many fear that illegals will avoid going to doctors for fear of being sued, which could create a full-blown health crisis.
More generally, what sharpens the criticism is that legal and illegal alike will fall in Florida and a kind of police state is being created that is itself amenable to racial profiling, as one might start demanding ‘papers’ from people on the street. because of their looks.
In a state where one in five people are immigrants, this can be quite a headache.
“What this bill will create is an atmosphere where any immigrant, tourist or even citizen can be detained just because of their appearance. However, no one can determine a person’s immigration status just by looking at them unless they have the mental strength,” says Felipe Sousa of Hope Community Center, an NGO that advocates for immigrants’ rights.
The most striking thing about these bills, which will soon pass into law in Florida, is that they seem to go against national trends. Over the past decade, many states, including the most restrictive ones like Arizona, have bet on public policies that offer alternatives to undocumented immigrants. These include medical care, access to higher education, driver’s license and job protection.
In Arizona, for example, voters repealed a law barring them from higher education last year, and state congress is considering a proposal to provide them with financial aid.
This is because many have realized—some for humanitarian reasons and others for pure pragmatism—that this population exists and it is preferable to consider the sun rather than cover it with a finger.
For many, the anti-illegal immigration movement in Florida responds to a political narrative that sells well among most conservative Republicans.
Proof of this is Trump himself, who won the party primaries in 2016 and then the generals, in part because of his anti-immigrant rhetoric, which included a promise to build a wall on the Mexican border that he never built.
And DeSantis, who is pushing the measures the hardest, wants to arrive in the Republican nomination race for the presidential election (which will include Trump) with the strongest references on immigration.
But some believe the strategy could be costly, at least in Florida, a key electoral state.
“Many of the immigrant communities in South Florida are, in fact, people who have left countries with left-wing governments (Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela) where they have become quite conservative voters and locally form an important part of the Republican Party. They’re the communities DeSantis needs if it wants to advance in the presidential race, says Lisandro Pérez, a professor of Latin American affairs at New York’s John Jay College.
It is too early to say whether it will be useful. However, not the fact that within a few weeks immigrants in Florida will begin to live in a state where they are no longer welcome.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERİ
TIME REPORTER
WASHINGTON
Source: Exame
