MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Just days after Florida’s newest immigration law went into effect, advocacy groups are now hoping the courts can stop it.
Several organizations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union, will be plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and on behalf of several individuals and the Florida Farmworkers Association.
“The Constitution is in our favor,” said Renata Bozzetto, deputy director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
She says the lawsuit will specifically focus on the provision outlined in Section 10, which criminalizes the transportation of individuals into Florida who may have entered the country without being inspected.
“Immigration law is the purview of the federal government. The state of Florida should not be meddling with immigration law. The state of Florida should not be meddling with interstate commerce,” said Bozzetto.
Advocates have argued the bill has other provisions they deem harmful such as:
• Requiring hospitals to ask for patients’ immigration status.
• Restricting funding of community ID cards; invalidating driver’s licenses from other states.
Proponents of the law argue our immigration system is broken and Washington isn’t fixing it, despite the repetitive crisis we have seen at the southern border.
There is also the argument regarding the law and its real-life effects for those living in South Florida, where agriculture is seasonal and farm workers come and go.
“We know that the impact for our economy is that some people that might have a seasonal employment in the state could now be deterred from returning,” said Bozzetto.
Bozzetto believes fear driven by the law may keep farm workers from returning, which could create a shortage of workers and impact your kitchen table.
“The everyday work at the farms is done by individuals with their hands and if we’re talking about a labor force that might not return. The impact in our agriculture will be substantial,” she said. “When a state decides to make policies that aim at creating fear and aim at making people’s lives really difficult and miserable, why return to this state?”