DeSantis is rolling out one hard-right proposal after another to make news and price he is meaner and badder than Trump. Undocumented people come here to work, and he wants to be certain that no one will hire them, not even to pick crops, clean hotel rooms or do the dishes in restaurants.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday revived a push to adopt more stringent hiring protocols to prevent the employment of undocumented workers, acknowledging that a state law he championed during his first term in office has been ineffective.
Florida law currently requires all government employers and their contractors to use a federal electronic system, known as E-Verify, to check the immigration status of new hires.
DeSantis, however, says the mandate should be expanded to include all private employers in the state, saying the current law was a “compromise” reached by the Legislature following pushback from Florida’s agriculture, tourism and construction industries.
“We ended up with a compromise version that was inadequate,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Jacksonville. Now, DeSantis wants the Republican-led Legislature to help him deliver on the promise he made to voters when he first ran for governor in 2018.
After overwhelming Republican victories in 2022, DeSantis argued, the “political context” is working in his favor this time around.
“Now, we have super majorities in the Legislature,” DeSantis said. “We have, I think, a strong mandate to be able to implement the policies that we ran on and these are policies that I’ve been for since the day I became governor over four years ago.”
The E-Verify proposal is part of a larger immigration package that DeSantis is building ahead of a possible run for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, and that he is expected to use to attack President Joe Biden’s immigration policy to reach conservative voters not just in Florida, but on a national level.
To further bolster his immigration platform, DeSantis wants, among other things, to ban out-of-state tuition waivers at colleges and universities for undocumented students and prohibit local governments from issuing identification cards to migrants.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article272581361.html#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
DeSantis puts the “Stunted” in “Publicity Stunt”
Well said.
DeSadness is drunk with power; he is keeping score and taking names. My hope is he goes a bridge too far for most sane, reasonable, rational people including conservatives. This country does not need a fascist dictator, and any of Democrats including elderly Joe Biden are far better than this.
Thee’s a reason why Fascists do this kind of thing. They know that hate sells.
Yup
I would think that it would be political suicide to vote against the interests of tourism, agriculture, and construction in Florida.
You would think that the businesses that need low-wage labor would complain to DeSantis about his policy of not allowing undocumented people to work. There is a labor shortage in all these areas, which means they will have to pay more to get anyone to pick the fruit, clean hotel rooms, and perform unskilled labor work. Let them pay the price for the bully they elected.
Undocumented workers are protected by federal law to work. This is specific to undocumented persons, not those who are “illegal” immigrants (according to “the internet”) Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and Title VII
Beyond being downright evil, how does this help Floridians (whoever they are)? Seems he’s creating a significant problem to fix what is not a problem, except in his warped version of America.
Are native Floridians not getting hired because of undocumented workers?
Do Floridians prefer increasing the number of undocumented immigrants in parking lots and street corners waiting to be hired?
Do they prefer undocumented persons being unemployed and having no income?
Or maybe that’s his endgame… no jobs, no income, no residence… potential increase in children-in-transition (they are protected to go to school), increase of homeless persons, increase in crime…
SO he can take the next step: internment.
When DeSantis “proposes” anything, the legislature endorses it immediately. They can’t wait to give him control over everything and everyone. He is their ruler, the anointed one.
Went Trump had ICE raid workplaces, farmers and processing plants were desparate for workers. Why not facilitate their becoming US citizens since they are already here and working hard and paying taxes? That would be the sane and humane thing to do so we won’t do that.
George, I agree. The immigrants come here to work. Why not have a humane process that allows them to work? A friend told me about a Guatemalan who had no papers. His brother did, but not him. He worked in construction, became a skilled carpenter, plumber, and all-around responsible worker. He went to Church every Sunday, where he played the guitar. He paid taxes. After 15 years, he went home because there was no path to becoming a legal citizen. Our loss. There was plenty of work for him. His boss paid him $25 an hour. But he could not stay. He would have been a good citizen.
Exactly, Mr. Peterman!
Gonna be a lot of tomatoes, ears of sweet corn, strawberries and oranges rotting in the fields and orchards if DeSantis gets his way.
But I’d be sure that the large industrial growers will make sure that the authorities look the other way by contributing to DeSantis election funding.
I think you are right. DeSantis wants jolt from his announcement, but I doubt he will have the nerve to enforce it. Half the jobs in Florida are low wage service jobs, and many people in the state aren’t willing to do them.
Low-skilled, low-income illegal immigrants cost local, state, and federal governments far more in social services costs than they pay in taxes. That’s also true for legal citizens who fit those criteria. Several years ago a study by professional economists found that on average (across the entire U.S.) a family of four needed to earn at least $60,000 gross income before the taxes they paid exceeded the value of government services they received. That’s simple math, not political ideology.
The people who read this blog aren’t affected personally by illegal labor undercutting their pensions or their teaching incomes – they don’t have to compete with illegal labor. As Bernie Sanders once said, “open borders is a Koch brothers idea.” What he meant was competition from low wage illegal immigrants reduced the incomes of citizens working those same jobs. That’s exactly what has happened in many industries, notably residential roofing.
BTW, 2017 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that at most 4% of illegal immigrants work in agricultural related jobs. Maybe illegal immigrants should be allowed to do K-12 teaching jobs at 1/3 the current average salary.
Some states are already importing teachers from overseas, particularly math teachers from the Philippines and India. They work for an agency that garnishes a lot of their wages. Gotta love good old capitalism.
Ms.Snyder, that’s total bull____.
Here. Read this and learn a little.
https://www.cato.org/blog/14-most-common-arguments-against-immigration-why-theyre-wrong?gclid=Cj0KCQiA3eGfBhCeARIsACpJNU8plv1n45pt_OCH4uCVhnDJY1tQZbmmxVD35tG8D5kuiOd7nrzb56oaAkoQEALw_wcB
And please note the general boost to the economy of having access to a pool of HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE and VERY LOW COST workers.
Lisa, RE: your last para, that’s apparently a misquote; note BLS 2017 stat in this article says 42%: 3/17/17 WaPo: United Fresh Produce Assn puts the # of farmworkers employed in the US as 1.5 million to 2 million; they estimate proportion who are illegal at 50%-70%; the Department of Labor, in its National Agricultural Workers Survey , puts it at 46 percent.
This synchs with a couple of other cites: Fwd.us 9/14/22: “Undocumented farm workers make up approximately 50% of the farm labor workforce.” NYT 4/2/20: “It is an open secret that the vast majority of people who harvest America’s food are undocumented immigrants.”
And those who work in meat processing plants. And those who work as maids in cheaper hotels and motels. And those who do grounds maintenance at apartment complexes and businesses nationwide.
What percent of hotel workers and restaurant employees—you know, the ones who clear the dirty dishes and don’t get tips—are undocumented?
Lisa sorry I goofed in my response [although point still holds!] It makes sense that only 4% of illegals work in ag, because ag is only 5% of the US GDP (and only 1.65 of FL’s GDP).
The Ron DeSantis Twitter atttack on me was published as hot news today in Murdoch’s NY Post. News flash: my sons went to private school half a century ago! I supported charters! A dozen years ago, I turned against charters.
https://nypost.com/2023/02/25/charter-foe-diane-ravitch-ripped-for-sending-kids-to-private-school/
Watch out for trolls.
So disingenuous. Undocumented workers are locked out of most services, so you cannot equate their use of government services with use of said services by citizens.
Duh
And, ofc, taxes are not the only benefit to the economic welfare of the country as a whole provided by undocumented workers.
Well you are right to some degree. On the other end of that equation is the lower cost for the consumer and of course the higher profits for the employer. Having been a Union Construction worker certainly undocumented workers are being exploited to undercut wages.
Here is a novel idea. In 1931 a blatant racist Sen James Davis ( R-PA ) a eugenicist who hated more than Blacks . and Rep Robert Bacon (NY-1 Diane’s district and now sadly mine ) working with Southern Democrats passed the Davis Bacon act to prevent Federal Dollars from undercutting the wages of Northern Construction workers. The motive of the Southern Democrats who overwhelming voted for the Bill was not to preserve living standards of Northern construction workers but rather to keep Black slave labor on Southern Farms during the Great Migration. Well in 1964 LBJ emancipated the slaves with the Civil Rights Act . In the 70s most of those Construction Unions were dragged into Federal Court and forced to take in Black members. Today Davis Bacon is valuable support for wages in the Construction Industry for workers of all Colors.
The H1B Visa program already calls for these migrant workers to receive prevailing wage . The problem is there are almost no Unions in the Tech sector to insure that employers follow the Law and the immigrants residency status is dependent on his employment .
How about we document all immigrant workers. Give them a path to citizenship . Insist that all immigrants be paid local prevailing wages as a condition of employment. Then pass the Pro Act to make it easy for all workers to organize . I assure you that the unions and the immigrants will make sure wages are not undermined .
And if you are going to toss Sanders name out there he voted against the immigration bill because it made wage slaves of immigrant workers whose residency status in that Bill was in the hands of the employer. Bracero programs are the preferred choice of the right . Somehow I doubt your concern is wages .
Joel, that’s a great plan.
I agree with you, Lisa. The right idea is to welcome immigrants and grant them human rights to education, healthcare, etc., but to punish employers who hire them in order to take advantage of them. In some cases, they get paid less than minimum wage and are subjected to dangerous workplace conditions. About that, read What’s the Matter with Kansas. In other cases, companies hiring immigrants suppress the wages and other labor rights of other workers by using the cheapest labor source possible. Punish the employers by denying them the ability to hire the cheapest labor; don’t punish the workers. Give immigrants a path to citizenship. Give employers a path to decency.
By the way, I learned about What’s the Matter with Kansas from Joel, years ago, on this blog.
And the same is true at my level with HB-1 visas.
Many studies have shown that immigrants are a net plus to the economy, even the unregistered ones. They contribute more than they receive. Joel is on the right track. If we make them all legal, they will pay into Social Security that the right is determined to dismantle. The right does not want them to be legal and have the ability to vote. They fear their political power.
retired teacher
Forgetting the underground economy where workers are off the books . Many undocumented are paying Withholding and Payroll taxes using fraudulent Social Security numbers and Ids. Of course their employers know that that when they are hired . They will never collect on Social Security and Medicare even though they contribute . They predominantly are in low wage jobs yet will not be eligible for income support like the Child Tax credit … They also pay Sales Tax and Real Estate taxes as a homeowner or even as a renter, as Landlords include the costs of taxes in the rent.
What government services are undocumented people eligible to receive?
Out where I reside, an agricultural area called the North Fork of Long Island, I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of agricultural workers are undocumented. I am unaware of ICE raids, and my guess is that our Trumper Congressman Lee Zeldin kept them out to maintain a labor supply for the farmers. The white kids don’t want to pick grapes or till the fields. Everybody working on the fields seems to be Latino.
The only benefit they can get is Medicaid for their children, and access to this varies from state to state. Anything else they may access comes from private charities.
Dangerously Deranged DeSantis learned from Traitor Trump that you can say anything, meaning tell them lies, a lot of lies, what they want to hear, to trick MAGARINOs to vote for him and then when the corporate farmers complain they don’t have enough workers to pick the crops in Florida, DDD will not deliver on those lies to the easy to fool, ignorant, fascist loving MAGARINO voters.
Then the corporate farmers will bribe DDD with big campaign contributions, and it won’t matter if the traditional media points this out, or not, because those fascist loving MAGARINO voters will never know since OAN, FOX and Sinclar Media will never report the results of the traitor or DDD’s lies.
I suppose he’d love a fight with Federal law so he can take his madness to the Supreme Court.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he got the Florida legislature to ban undocumented children from school, wait for a law suit, and appeal it all the way to overturn Plyler v. Doe.
Sadly, you may be right. DeSantis is eager to limit the federal government.
DeSantis is eager to make DeSantis more powerful. I don’t think that it goes beyond that. He plays an ideologue on TV so that HE can become president and then change the country so that he becomes more and more powerful. More and more the “decider” for everyone. He’s very like Trump in that way. His Mini-Me.
My guess: DeSantis wants to limit the power of the federal government unless he wins the presidency. Then he will stick his nose into everyone’s private and public lives.
I am positive his buddies in the sugar, tomato and construction/development businesses will LOVE this. Big sugar, big agriculture and construction all run on immigrant labor.
Exactly.
This is what Fascists do. They demonize and attack the weak a) because it’s easy, b) because they have no moral qualms about hurting others, and c) because creating an external enemy wins adherence from a mass of stupid, ignorant, bigots.
South Dade Newsleader 8/23/21: “Overall, Florida’s economy is 17th least dependent on agriculture.”
Apparently DeathSantis is willing to kill off what’s left of it in exchange for some red meat to throw to his base.
Who will pick all those oranges and grapefruit?
And trim the hedges in all those retirement communities?
And stand on rooftops in the Florida sun in the middle of freaking July and do roof repairs on buildings in apartment complexes, senior living facilities, businesses, retirement villages, etc., etc.
and tomatoes and sugar beets
Don’t forget strawberries! Backbreaking to harvest [can’t be done by machine]– and FL is #2 to CA in its production.
Guess the agribusiness owners will pick the berries.
How do even the crazy conservatives and their “pro-business” creed stand this guy?
DeSantis is going to run out of srunts before his Presidential run,
His supporters will have forgotten most of these things by that time,
If he were smart, he would save some of them for the future
DeSantis has many more tricks up his sleeve
A few days ago, Tom Hartman wrote that harsh penalties on employers who hired undocumented workers were the norm for the US until Reagan quit this enforcement to bust unions. If Hartman’s view is correct, Trumpism and now DeSantis’ view seems to reverse Reagan’s.