Florida Republicans Want To Have Their Anti-Immigrant Bill And Eat Their Oranges, Too

Who would have thought that an anti-immigration bill would chase all the immigrant workers away?

In May of this year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 1718, which he declared to be "the strongest anti-illegal immigration bill in the country." According to the ACLU, the sweeping legislation:

Criminalizes Floridians who shelter, support, and provide transportation to undocumented immigrants, including those who have overstayed their visa or who have lived in Florida for decades and have US born children. Makes it harder for immigrants to provide for their families. Harms businesses by authorizing FDLE to conduct random checks of businesses to ensure compliance. Prohibits public funding for community IDs and requires hospitals to inquire of Medicaid patients whether they’re lawfully allowed in the country and to collect that data.

It also prohibits the state from honoring IDs and driver's licenses from states that issue them to undocumented immigrants and provides $12 million to continue DeSantis's policy of sending undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities. Because, hey — spite sells. The legislation, we assume, has brought unbridled joy and happiness to the xenophobes who voted for DeSantis and other Republican politicians.

It has also had the entirely unforeseen side-effect of spurring the undocumented immigrants and mixed-status families whose labor the state's economy relies upon to get the hell out of Florida. Well, unforeseen by those who voted for it, anyway.

Earlier this week, activist Thomas Kennedy of the Florida Immigrant Coalition released a video of Republican state Reps. Rick Roth and Alina Garcia speaking to a group of Hispanic pastors based in south Florida and begging them to please, please, please convince members of their congregations considering fleeing the state to stay and continue to work in the state.

“State Rep. Alina Garcia starts by saying she came unprepared, admits the bill is meant to “scare people from coming to Florida” and irresponsibly lies and says the anti-immigrant law has “no teeth.” She should have prepared by actually reading the bill she voted for.”

— Thomas Kennedy (@Thomas Kennedy) 1685975963 

Speaking to the crowd, Rep. Roth assured attendees that SB 1718 is only a "political" bill, which suggests that that he believes its purpose was not necessarily to harm undocumented immigrants, but to make the xenophobic assholes who vote for Republicans in Florida feel like it was going to harm undocumented immigrants.

“This bill is 100 percent supposed to scare you," said Rep. Roth, who — again — voted for the bill. "I’m a farmer, and I’m mad as hell. We are losing employees. They’re already starting to move to Georgia and other states. It’s urgent that you talk to all your people and convince them that you have resources in their state representatives and other people that can explain the bill to you.”

For her part, Rep. Garcia — who came to the United States from Cuba at the age of two — claimed that the bill didn't actually "have any teeth" and was only meant to “basically to scare people from coming into the state of Florida, and I think that it’s done its purpose.”

Yes, and when you scare people, they tend to run away.

Republicans, especially in states like Florida, have long relied on xenophobia and stirring up hatred of immigrants to get elected. They rile people up about the "crisis" and then when they are elected, they are expected to provide those who voted for them with the emotional catharsis that comes with seeing cruelty enacted on those populations. If politicians don't give them that catharsis, those voters will elect someone else who will.

What does put Republican politicians in a difficult spot is the fact that tourism, agriculture, and construction, the three biggest industries in the state, rely on the labor of those undocumented immigrants and their documented family members. If those workers go away, those industries could very well collapse — and the state's entire economy along with it. Importantly, this is not something Republican voters care about anymore. They are in full "burn it all down and damn the consequences" mode. They want vengeance and they want cultural dominance and beyond that, nothing else matters.

In a perfect world for legislators like Roth and Garcia, they really would be able to pass a law with "no teeth" that would slake the blood thirst of their constituents while allowing those industries that rely on immigrant labor to keep on doing things the way they've been doing them. But this bill actually will harm workers and they absolutely do have every reason to get the hell out of Florida and let just native-born US Americans pick their own damned oranges.

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