With DeSantis’ push, Florida passes tough law against irregular immigration

The state of Florida, in the southern United States, approved this Wednesday a law with harsh measures against irregular migrationpromoted by the Republican governor Ron DeSantis, whose candidacy for the White House in 2024 seems imminent.

DeSantis signed the text during an event in Jacksonville, in the northeast of the state, under the slogan “The (Joe) Biden Border Crisis”, the Democratic president whom he accuses of not addressing illegal immigration.

“The Mexican drug cartels have more to say about what happens on the southern border than our own US government.”, said the governor, justifying the need for the new Florida law.

The text will enter into force on July 1. Among its most outstanding measures, it will require companies with more than 25 employees to use E-Verifya federal system for checking the immigration status of the people they want to hire.

In addition, it will force hospitals that accept public Medicaid insurance to collect data on the immigration status of their patients, which could lead undocumented migrants to avoid receiving treatment, according to opponents of the rule.

On the other hand, the transport of undocumented persons from another state to Florida will become a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

And authorities will stop recognizing out-of-state driver’s licenses issued to irregular migrants, as well as ban funding for local programs to provide identity documents to undocumented aliens.

The law also allocates 12 million dollars to transfer undocumented migrants to other states of the country, within the framework of a program that began last year with the sending of two groups of Venezuelans in private planes from Texas to the Northeast United States.

DeSantis44, a rising figure on the American right, has promoted a very conservative agenda in recent months on issues related to education, immigration or the right to abortion.

The Republican majority in both state houses has given him their full support to pass laws that have earned him a lot of media attention.

But his initiatives have been questioned by human rights advocates.

“Florida penalizes immigrants for having been unlucky enough to be born in troubled countries and having had the courage to seek peace and prosperity here”, declared Tessa Petit, executive director of the organization Florida Immigrant Coalitionin a statement sent this Wednesday.