DeSantis' Anti-Immigration Bill Has Predictable Consequences for Florida Businesses

Conservatives can’t run hard enough against immigration, and as immigration lawyers we’ve received a lot of calls wondering how some states’ efforts to create a hostile environment for undocumented immigrants will affect them. Unfortunately, many consequences are as predictable for them as they are for the states' business communities.

Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1718 on May 10, which takes extreme measures to make life harder for undocumented immigrants in Florida at—ironically—a time when many states are recognizing the importance of immigrant labor to their work force. We’ve written recently about governors in Iowa and Utah among other states exploring ways to bring in immigrants to fill vacant jobs. Now that he has signed the bill, DeSantis is seeing the impact of immigrants on the state’s economy as well.

The bill “makes using E-Verify mandatory for any employer with 25 or more employees, imposes enforceable penalties for those employing illegal aliens, and enhances penalties for human smuggling,” according to a press release. “Additionally, this bill prohibits local governments from issuing Identification Cards (ID) to illegal aliens, invalidates ID cards issued to illegal aliens in other states, and requires hospitals to collect and submit data on the costs of providing health care to illegal aliens.”

That’s not all. Senate Bill 1718

•  “creates a third-degree felony for an unauthorized alien to knowingly use a false ID document to gain employment and prohibits a county or municipality from providing funds to any person or organization for the purpose of issuing IDs or other documents to an illegal alien”
•  prohibits “illegal aliens” from relying “on out-of-state driver licenses. If another state issued a license to an illegal alien who was unable to prove lawful presence in the U.S. when his or her license was issued, that person is prohibited from operating a motor vehicle in Florida”
•  “enhances the crime of human smuggling when smuggling a minor, when smuggling more than five people, and when the defendant has a prior conviction for human smuggling. This bill also adds the crime of human smuggling to the list of crimes allowed for prosecution under the Florida Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act”
•  requires “each hospital that accepts Medicaid to include a question on admission or registration forms that asks whether the patient is a U.S. citizen or lawfully present in the U.S. or is not lawfully present in the U.S. Hospitals will be required to provide a quarterly report to the Agency for Health Care Administration detailing the number of patients that visited the emergency department or were admitted to the hospital in each category of the citizen status question on the admission or registration forms.”

The Tallahassee Democrat reports that it also "expands the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s counter-terrorism efforts to include immigration matters,” and “appropriates tax dollars to be used for DeSantis' ‘unauthorized alien transport program,’ the program he began when he flew about 50 Venezuelan migrants in two charter planes from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.”

The new bill sent waves of fear through Florida’s undocumented immigrants as it isolates them, and it makes no exceptions for mixed-status families or those living in Florida under DACA. That fear extends to Florida’s business community, particularly the parts that rely on immigrant labor: construction, hospitality, health care, and agriculture. The bill doesn’t go into effect until July 1, but viral videos show that it is already having an impact. Florida construction sites are empty, and Latinx truck drivers are talking about refusing to drive to Florida.

The signing can’t be separated from DeSantis’ political ambitions since it lines up so neatly with the party’s MAGA base and its desire for a get-tougher approach to immigration. “The legislation I signed today gives Florida the most ambitious anti-illegal immigration laws in the country, fighting back against reckless federal government policies and ensuring the Florida taxpayers are not footing the bill for illegal immigration,” he said.

Florida doesn’t share a land border with Mexico, so he further burnished his anti-immigration bona fides when he announced on May 16 that he would send members of Florida’s National Guard to Texas to get a piece of the border defense action. Republicans and Democrats expected the end of Title 42 on Monday to trigger a flood of migrants, but so far it hasn’t materialized. The reality on the ground hasn’t stopped DeSantis from sending Texas 800 members of the Florida National Guard, 200 agents (in teams of 40) from the state Department of Law Enforcement, 101 state highway patrol troopers, 20 agents from the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Department of Emergency Management, five fixed-wing aircrafts, 17 unmanned drones, and 10 waterborne vessels.

The decision to adopt the harshest stance possible is cruel, but that cruelty is a feature and not a bug for a part of the Conservative base. It is also at war with the reality of Florida’s work environment, but it remains to be seen whether DeSantis, the Florida legislature, or other politicians working that rhetoric will pay a price for it. In the meantime, one of the most important things we can do is keep the truth about immigration and its place in American culture in the conversation.

Photo by Tolu Olubode on Unsplash.