Photo: Brent Stirton/Getty Images
Many Florida businessmen are already expressing fear about the effects that the new anti-immigrant law SB1718 enacted by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis may have on being able to effectively run their own businesses.
Rodrick Miller, president of the Beacon Council, a public-private organization for economic development in Miami-Dade County, told a business summit in Florida that among business owners there is a great fear that ICE will knock on the door of their businesses.
In addition, other employers assure that they are already seeing the resignations of their workers, willing to go to other states.
This is because among the employment requirements imposed by Law 1718, which does not allow offering employment to undocumented workers, is that companies suspected of hiring undocumented workers can be audited by state or federal authorities.
SB 1718, which went into effect in July in Florida, is already creating a labor shortage in key sectors of that state’s economy.
At a summit on the role of immigrants in the construction of Florida, Miller revealed that, although he does not have official figures, in this organization they hear that more and more migrant families are leaving the state due to the SB1718 law, promoted by the governor and presidential candidate Republican Ron DeSantis.
“It’s going to shrink the workforce in an already tight job market,” said Randy McGrorty, executive director of the Archdiocese of Miami’s Catholic Legal Services, which offers help navigating the legal bureaucracy to newly arrived asylum seekers. among other immigrants.
McGrorty, who also participated in the meeting, highlighted the difficulty that the three sectors that sustain the Florida economy, such as the hotel, agriculture and construction, have had for years to fill positions that require skilled labor.
A scenario that is now complicated because SB 1718 requires companies with a minimum of 25 employees to Use the E-Verify database, which allows you to confirm the immigration status of workers.
According to McGrorty, among the first victims of the law were employment agencies, which now have fewer affiliates. “The clear message is that Florida doesn’t welcome you anymore,” added.
Florida hurts itself
Mike Fernandez, president of MBF Healthcare Partners and co-chair of the American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC), noted that “Florida would only hurt itself if it did not welcome and integrate newcomers into our communities.”
“This is a community of immigrant workers,” said the businessman, who stressed that immigrants almost by definition are people who take risks and therefore regretted that some politicians “forget that leading has to do with serving.”
The Archbishop of Miami, Thomas Wenski, stated that “immigrants are not the problem, the problem is a broken immigration system.”
Immigrants basically come to work”
Thomas Wenski, Archbishop of Miami
Along these lines, McGrorty asserted that The Miami immigration court has the largest backlog of asylum applications in the US, with more than 250,000 files waiting to be heard, many of them from newcomers to the country, mostly Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans.
“If you have a chance to have your file filed today, you won’t have your case closed for 4 to 6 years,” said the representative of the Archdiocese of Miami, one of the organizers of today’s summit along with ABIC.
McGrorty, like Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, another of the speakers at today’s event, sees the current “immigrant narrative” as important.
“They turn themselves in to the authorities at the border. We are not in the middle of some kind of invasion, it is quite the opposite”, he asserted.
Levine Cava opined that local institutions must speak louder about how they act in the face of the new norm and pointed out that in the case of his county, local schools, for example, have protocols to serve new students from other countries.
“We have always been a welcoming community for people who come seeking freedom and opportunity after fleeing oppressive governments, violence or devastating natural disasters. We understand their suffering and respond with compassion,” the mayor said.
He stressed that for this immigrants make up more than half of the local workforce and they make up more than 70% of all business owners in Florida.
With information from EFE
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