Last month, Ron DeSantis signed an anti-immigrant law that goes into effect July 1. It contains many shitty provisions designed to make life harder for the state’s approximately 800K undocumented immigrants.
There’s a labor shortage in Florida, and many industries, including landscaping, agriculture and construction, rely heavily on undocumented immigrant labor. In the runup to the bill’s passage and since the signing, I’ve heard rumors of boycotts and seen photos of idled construction sites and farm operations, etc., but I hadn’t personally seen any hard evidence of the backlash until Adam sent me this yesterday:
Got footage from inside this event. They admit the bill is “100% meant to scare” immigrants and beg the crowd to “urgently” convince “your people” to not leave Florida since folks in the agriculture industry are mad workers are leaving. The hypocrisy is so brazen and disgusting. https://t.co/LzsV2qgG0F pic.twitter.com/BnWnWCWqcI
— Thomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn) June 5, 2023
Sorry about the tweets, but there it is — three South Florida GOP lawmakers addressing pastors who serve immigrant communities. The Repub hypocrites, all of whom voted for the bill, are basically begging the preachers to tell their congregants to stay in Florida so the crops won’t rot, noting that “farmers are mad” that immigrants are leaving. So yeah, it’s real, and they are in a panic.
This was totally predictable because other red states have done similar anti-immigrant stunts and wound up with no one to tend their landscaping, construct their buildings or pick their crops. But Ron DeSantis has a presidential campaign to run, and he doesn’t give a shit what happens to the suckers who reelected him (let alone the folks who tried to vote his sorry ass out).
The bill that is causing this panic also funnels more money into the undocumented immigrant “relocation” program. DeSantis uses that slush fund to pay a private jet company that’s affiliated with his administration to fly immigrants from Texas to other states, most recently California. Last night, Governor Newsom called DeSantis a “small, pathetic man” and threated to charge him with kidnapping for luring immigrants onto planes under false pretenses and dumping them in California. (LAT)
In Texas, the Bexar County sheriff also recommended criminal charges against the DeSantis administration for its Martha’s Vineyard campaign stunt. (Miami Herald) So maybe Trump won’t be the only indicted GOP presidential candidate from Florida.
Open thread.
