Work rules could change
DeSantis aims to boost E-Verify, restrict immigrants
Gov. DeSantis said Thursday he wants to pass a fully binding E-Verify program to prevent companies from hiring undocumented workers, a proposal that has repeatedly been watered down before because of opposition from big business.
DeSantis also proposed stricter penalties for human smuggling. But he also wants to prevent undocumented people from practicing law, and from getting in-state tuition benefits, local ID cards, or driver’s licenses.
In addition, he wants to require hospitals to keep track of how much it costs to treat them.
“It will make a really big difference,” DeSantis said. “We have enough people that want to come from these blue states, we can’t also take everybody from other countries illegally. It’s hard enough, the state’s getting very, very crowded.”
Elizabeth Ricci, an immigration attorney in Tallahassee, said, “we’re going to see that a lot of what the governor is doing is unconstitutional. And we’ll show that.”
“It is not the state’s job to enforce immigration laws,” Ricci said. “But these measures, likely unconstitutional as they are, at the end of the day are not going to be the disincentive [to migrants] that he’s hoping. It’s just going to basically pander to voters who don’t know the difference.”
At an event in Jacksonville, DeSantis laid out what he called his “fight against Biden’s border crisis,” his latest move to shore up his anti-immigration agenda in advance of what is widely expected to be a run for president.
One of the areas he wants to target is the state’s E-Verify law, which has generated conflict within the Capitol for years.
A bill passed by the Legislature in 2020 and signed into law by DeSantis required government contractors in Florida to use the federal E-Verify database to confirm their hires were legal. But the law exempted other businesses, a loophole that included the agriculture industry and its large number of undocumented workers.
DeSantis touted the bill as a victory, including putting up billboards that read, “FLORIDA uses E-Verify.”
But in the first five months the new law was in effect in 2021, the Orlando Sentinel found there had been no complaints and no enforcement measures taken against any employers.
“Although we’ve been able to hold some account
able, it hasn’t been effective enough,” DeSantis said Thursday. “So we’re working with [state Rep.] Blaise Ingoglia in the Legislature to require all employers in Florida to use E-Verify to determine employment eligibility.”
Intense lobbying by the agriculture and tourism industries have prevented that so far, DeSantis said, but he didn’t think that would happen this time.
“We ended up with a compromise version that was inadequate,” DeSantis said. “Now, we have supermajorities in the Legislature, we have a strong mandate to be able to implement the policies that we ran on. … That really makes a difference.”
He added that it may still be “a fight” to get it passed.
“Some of these Republicans, and you see a lot in Washington too, they campaign saying they’re going to do all these things, but then when they get up there, they don’t want to do it,” DeSantis said. “And that’s the problem.”
DeSantis also laid out a number of proposals that would severely limit what any undocumented person, even potentially those protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, would be able to do.
His plan would ban local governments from issuing ID cards to people he called “unauthorized aliens,” as well as invalidate their out-of-state drivers’ licenses. It would require hospitals to collect data about patients’ immigration status and “regularly submit reports on the cost of care provided to illegal aliens.”
He would also ban out-of-state tuition waivers at colleges and universities for undocumented students and prevent “unauthorized aliens” from practicing law.