SB 1718 has thousands of Florida immigrants at a crossroads

At 42 years old and after 15 years working in Florida To support his family, Honduran Edwin Franco, a heavy equipment operator, has had to face the dilemma of moving to another state or facing the risk of being deported, like many thousands of other undocumented immigrants in Florida.

This Saturday, July 1, a law promoted by Governor Ron DeSantis, a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, goes into effect in Florida, which harshly punishes irregular immigration in a state with a great dependence on foreign labor.

Pro-immigrant organizations estimate that there are some 400,000 undocumented who work in Florida, mainly in sectors such as agriculture, construction and hospitality, where they represent 10% of the workforce.

Franco is one of them.

The company for which he had worked for eight years made the decision to fire him and 25 other workers to avoid problems when the law is in force and he has already decided to pack his bags and leave Florida, according to what he told EFE in a telephone interview. .

“I have been fired for not having a work permit and above all because of the law that is going to come into force right now the first day,” He notes with regret this Thursday, his last day of work.

A Draconian Law

The so-called SB 1718 law requires companies with more than 25 employees to use a program to verify the immigration status of each one, on pain of fines and the withdrawal of permits to operate, among other draconian and “un-American” measures, as some of its critics have accused it of.

Another example of the harshness of the law is that traveling in a car across state lines with an undocumented person is considered a second degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The punishment increases if the passenger is a minor, regardless of whether it is an immediate family member of the driver.

The law makes it difficult for the undocumented to access medical care, by making it mandatory to register the immigration status of all patients in hospitals that receive Medicaid (public health insurance) and by ignoring driver’s licenses issued by other states to people without legal immigration status.

“I had been working in the garbage transport company for some time, but it is no longer possible, it is not possible,” says Franco, who still does not know where he will go or what to do with his family, since his wife and son work.

“It would be time to make a decision: if I go with the family or seek to leave first and then the family, but obviously to be together, everyone will have to move,” underlines.

The Florida Exodus

According to the September 15 Foundation, 35% of Hondurans who worked without papers in Florida have already moved to other states, such as Georgia and North Carolina, including a group of qualified construction workers.

Edwin Franco has not decided on his new place in the world.

“It will be time to get in a car and look for another state where, well, they appreciate the work that we do. I am a heavy equipment operator and the company I worked for was a company that transported garbage to the burners”.

Franco laments that he has no immigration relief. “For us Hondurans it is much more complicated than for other nationalities,” he says, mentioning that Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans have enjoyed a humanitarian “parole” since last January that allows families already settled in USA claim their own.

The possibility of returning to Honduras is ruled out outright.

“Returning to our country is not an option, one because of crime and the other because there is no work”says.

Edwin points out that at 42 years old, changing his life will not be as easy as when he arrived in the United States.

“One-says-you get used to the job you have and apart from that now, because with age it’s not like before, like 8 or 10 years ago, when they fired me (fired) or I left work for whatever reason without any problem”.

But it is clear that he will not find in Miami a company that hires you and at most you could look for specific jobs for one or two days a week.

“It’s time to move,” he says, speaking as if to himself.

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