Migrant Workers Flee Florida as New Immigration Law Takes Effect
Farm owners and construction companies say the law, which started July 1, has already diminished their workforce
Florida’s agricultural and construction industries say they are experiencing a labor shortage because a new immigration law that took effect July 1 is leading migrant workers to leave the state.
The law, signed in May by Florida Gov. and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, seeks to further criminalize undocumented immigration in the state. It makes it a third-degree felony for unauthorized people to knowingly use a false identification to obtain employment. Businesses that knowingly employ unauthorized workers could have their licenses suspended, and those with 25 or more employees that repeatedly fail to use the E-Verify system to check their immigration status can face daily fines.
Business owners and workers alike say the ranks of laborers in Florida have grown noticeably thinner.
“The employee who wants to work on the farm is not available anymore,” said Hitesh Kotecha, owner of a produce packaging facility in South Florida who leases land to farmers. “How are we going to run the farms?”
In Miami’s booming construction market, developers, construction companies and construction workers say the change happened as soon as DeSantis signed the legislation this spring. Workers at several construction sites in South Florida say a quarter to half of their teams are gone, exacerbating an already challenging labor shortage across the industry.
“We’ve seen some fallout on job sites, particularly as it relates to hourly labor as a result of this new law,” said Tom C. Murphy, co-president of Coastal Construction, which has more than 30 active projects across the state of Florida.
In addition to increasing penalties on employers and workers, the new law requires hospitals that accept Medicaid to question a patient’s immigration status, and invalidates out-of-state driver’s licenses issued to people unauthorized to be in the U.S. It makes it a third-degree felony to knowingly transport into Florida a person who is undocumented and illegally entered the U.S. The law also adds $12 million to the amount of money the state has earmarked for its migrant-relocation program, bringing the total to $22 million this year.
A spokesman for DeSantis said the law counteracts the effects of illegal immigration on Florida. “Any business that exploits this crisis by employing illegal aliens instead of Floridians will be held accountable,” he said.
On Saturday, the day the law went into effect, hundreds of people gathered in Homestead, Fla., to march in protest. At the march, the Farmworker Association of Florida announced that it and several advocacy and watchdog groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, were exploring how they might challenge the law in federal court.
In 2019 there were an estimated 772,000 undocumented immigrants living in Florida, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Since then, there has been a massive influx of immigrants into the country, and last year Florida’s population grew more than any other state, according to census data.
Lawyers in Florida are rushing to figure out how best to advise their clients regarding their hiring practices to comply with the law.
“It’s kind of extreme that Florida passed a law like this,” said Daniela Barshel, an immigration lawyer based in Miami. Typically, immigration is a federal area of law, and figuring out how to interpret these new statewide rules alongside federal law will be complicated, she said. Blanket advice, such as telling clients to avoid hiring noncitizens altogether, isn’t an option since that could constitute discrimination on the basis of race or national origin.
“You don’t want to be fined by the government, and you also don’t want to be sued by someone because they were authorized to work and you didn’t hire them,” she said.
Some of the workers fleeing Florida have been in the U.S. for years. While some might be authorized to work, they could be married to someone who isn’t. Others might be undocumented but have U.S.-born children who are underage.
Romeo Lucas worked at a plant nursery in Miami’s agricultural district for a decade, but recently moved to North Carolina. He said he was worried that he could become separated from his children. He said the move was also prompted by his wife’s diabetes and her ability to access healthcare without worries about it jeopardizing the family.
“It was a very difficult decision, but we didn’t want to live in fear, so we moved up north,” said Lucas, who would be directly affected by the new law.
Mahendra Raolji, who runs Jalaram Produce, a large farming and packaging facility, said more than half his workers have gone. His wife and business partner, Prafula Raolji, worried about enforcement of the law. “I pray it won’t happen. Because then who is going to work?” she said.
Some, such as Aura Sales Martin, aren’t leaving because they have nowhere else to go. On a recent afternoon she and a colleague, who is also undocumented, picked okra in a large field. When she arrived eight years ago from Guatemala, Martin spoke no Spanish, only a Mayan language called Mam. She cannot read or write, but her 13-year-old son, she says proudly, is fluent in English.
In downtown Miami, construction cranes are ubiquitous, rising above the fast-growing skyline. At site after site, the story was the same. Workers have fled. Many others are waiting to see what happens.
Outside one construction site, a worker said that he had lost about half his crew. They went to Indiana, he said, where jobs are paying $38 an hour instead of $25, and where they won’t have to look over their shoulders.
Among the projects is the 1.4 million square foot mixed-use building called Block 55, being built by Coastal Construction. Murphy said there was already a labor shortage before the exodus.
“While we fully support documentation of the immigrant workforce, the new law is aggravating an already trying situation,” he said.
Write to Deborah Acosta at deborah.acosta@wsj.com
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Appeared in the July 5, 2023, print edition as 'Florida Law Chases Away Migrant Workers'.