Is Florida already bearing the fruit of immigration reform?
Supporters of the Sunshine State’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, are able to claim momentary victory as the restrictions on migration recently signed into law by DeSantis have been followed by increased private-sector wages and innovation in technology as businesses try to make up for the loss in cheap illegal foreign laborers.
The change can be seen in the construction sector. According to a report from USA Today, the law, which went into effect on July 1 and is considered one of the strictest pieces of state migration legislation in the nation, has caused an “exodus” of workers from the state. In response, employers are finding themselves having to raise wages to attract legal workers.
One man who owns a Naples-based construction company told the outlet he has adapted by raising the pay of his employees from $18-20 an hour to $30-35 per hour. Per USA Today, many of the estimated 800,000 illegal aliens in Florida are already leaving or making plans to leave of their own accord in light of the new law.
Jeannie Economos, a manager at the Farmworker Association of Florida, which opposes the DeSantis-backed law, complained to Breitbart News that farm companies are raising prices and saying they need “More money for research into mechanization, we need more mechanization, we can’t afford the cost of labor.”
Among the provisions found in DeSantis’ migration law is the requirement that employers with more than 25 employees use the federal government’s E-Verify system to confirm job applicants’ legal status.
“Obviously, we were really surprised that the [GOP] legislature passed this [E-Verify law] because they’re so devoted to business that we didn’t think that they would pass something that would harm business,” Economos told Breitbart, noting the divide between the establishment and dissident wings of the GOP, with the latter ascending in influence within the party, thanks in part to the popularity of figures such as Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis — and the bully pulpit their popularity gives them.
Jeremy Redfern, press secretary for DeSantis, defended the governor’s policy, arguing that its opponents are deliberately sowing confusion by blurring the distinction between legal immigration and illegal migration.
“The media has been deliberately inaccurate about this distinction between legal and illegal immigration to create this very sort of outrage based on a false premise,” Redfern told USA Today. “Any business that exploits this [border] crisis by employing illegal aliens instead of Floridians will be held accountable.”
Mark Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies, commented to Breitbart News that he believes DeSantis and Republicans should publicly be more direct in treating migration, not only as a culture war issue, but as one with far-reaching economic consequences.
Said Krikorian:
Clearly, [DeSantis is] committed to E-Verify, having made two significant pushes for it in the state legislature and gotten a pretty good bill, which went into effect July 1. But his campaign literature so far addresses E-Verify but in a more vague way, and this is pure speculation, — but I wonder whether the political-operative types are a little more skittish about it than the governor himself is.
The United States has to get Mexico’s attention for it to cooperate on issues, like migration, like fentanyl, and one of the most powerful ways to do that is by playing the tariff card. So you can’t separate what are sometimes segregated as “culture” issues from economic issues? They’re all just different facets of the same problem.
The migrant crisis, furthered by the Biden administration’s lax economic policies, has caused havoc in both Republican and Democratic communities and forced policymakers to come up with creative solutions at the state level.
DeSantis’ new immigration law enacts a broad suite of comprehensive reforms. Besides mandating E-Verify, the legislation, per a press release from the governor’s office, “imposes enforceable penalties for those employing illegal aliens, and enhances penalties for human smuggling. Additionally, [the law] 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.”
DeSantis has also made headlines for transporting illegal aliens to other states, a policy emulated by New York Mayor Eric Adams. Despite the fact that Adams has previously railed against the Republican governors of Florida and Texas for their policies of sending illegal migrants to Democratic strongholds such as New York, his administration has purchased approximately $50,000 worth of flights to send migrants to states such as Florida and North Carolina and to countries such as China and Venezuela.
This comes as New York City’s migrant crisis has made city officials increasingly desperate. As The New American previously reported, New York City is now taking care of more migrants than homeless in its shelter system.
So long as the federal government remains in dereliction of its duty to protect the border, even Democrats will come to realize that the reality of mass migration is far from the rosy picture leftists have long made it out to be.
