DeSantis is playing with
FIRE.
You don’t Fuck with Big Business and their profit margin.
That is a complete “No-No” in how Republicans do things.
'My truck won't move.' Are truckers boycotting Florida over DeSantis' new immigration law?
C. A. Bridges
USA TODAY NETWORK – FLORIDA
May 16, 2023
Some Latin American truckers are calling for a statewide boycott in response to Gov. DeSantis' new immigration crackdown law. Here's what we know.
www.tallahassee.com
Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill imposing tough new penalties and restrictions on undocumented immigrants in Florida that, among other things, requires employers to use E-Verify to make sure workers are authorized to work in the U.S.
By the weekend, Latin American truck drivers were threatening to stop delivering to and in Florida, according to independent journalist Arturo Dominguez. "Don't enter Florida," one trucker said in a TikTok video.
"Spanish language social media has exploded with Latino truck drivers calling for a boycott and refusing to take shipments into Florida," Dominguez tweeted Saturday. "Things are about to get interesting."
What does this mean for Floridians? Here's what we know so far.
Why are truckers not delivering to Florida?
During the COVID pandemic, the President Trump administration established Title 42, part of a public health law to curb migration in the name of protecting public health. It allowed U.S. officials to turn away migrants to came to the U.S,-Mexico border. Before that, migrants could cross illegally, ask for asylum and, after being screened, were often allowed to stay while they waited for their immigration cases. Under Title 42, migrants were returned over the border and denied the right to seek asylum.
President Joe Biden tried to end the title's use in 2022 but Republicans sued, claiming it was necessary for border security. Title 42 was tied to the national COVID-19 emergency declaration and it ended when that did, last week, triggering GOP warnings of a massive surge at the border. Biden agreed the border might be "chaotic for a while" but so far the expected surge has not happened and the numbers of migrant encounters at the border actually dropped over the weekend since Title 42 ended.
In response to the end of Title 42, the Florida legislature pushed through a new bill, which has been praised by supporters as necessary and condemned by critics as cruel and potentially leading to law enforcement profiling. It’s considered among the toughest steps taken by any state to deter illegal aliens from arriving.
DeSantis, expected soon to announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, spoke in Jacksonville from a podium with a sign proclaiming, “Biden’s Border Crisis.”
“We’re bracing for some turbulent times ahead,” DeSantis said. “And I think when you have a president who has turned a blind eye to what’s gone on at the border... you’re likely to see it get a lot worse. We’re protecting Floridians, to the full extent of our ability.”
What does DeSantis' new immigration law do?
Florida's sweeping immigration bill, SB 1718, seeks to crack down on the flow of illegal immigration with some of the toughest penalties in the country. Among other things, the new law:
• Requires employers to verify a new employee’s employment eligibility within three business days after the first day the new employee begins working for pay.
• Requires private employers with 25 or more employees and all public agencies to use the federal E-Verify system to verify a new employee's employment eligibility, starting on July 1.
• Requires employers to fire an employee if they discover them to be a "foreign national" who is not authorized to work in the U.S. and makes it illegal for any person to knowingly employ, hire, recruit or even refer, either for herself or himself or on behalf of another, for private or public employment within the state, such a person.
• Repeals a 2014 law allowing immigrants living in the country illegally to practice law in the state.
• Hospitals that accept Medicaid must ask patients if they are U.S. citizens and if they are here legally, and report that data (without personally identifying information) to the governor quarterly and annually.
• Invalidates out-of-state driver's licenses issued to "unauthorized immigrants."
• Force arrested adults and juveniles with an immigration detainer (an “immigration hold”) to provide their DNA to the state.
• Makes it a third-degree felony for anyone who knowingly or who reasonably should know that they are transporting immigrants who entered the country illegally into Florida. Transporting a minor is a second-degree felony.
• Expands the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s counter-terrorism efforts to include immigration matters.
• Appropriates tax dollars to be used for DeSantis' “unauthorized alien transport program,” the program he began when he flew about 50 Venezuelan migrants in two charter planes from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
According to Susan Pai, a Florida immigration lawyer based in Jacksonville, the law also applies to people who lawfully entered the country on visitor and student visas but are not authorized to work.
Are truckers boycotting Florida?
We don't know for sure that they are, yet. Dominguez retweeted several videos of truckers calling for a boycott.
In one of the TikTok videos, a trucker under the name of [MENTION=4277]ROBERT[/MENTION]ooleo88oficial said, translated from Spanish: "Truckers, don't enter the state of Florida. Let's be united as Latinos in defense of our Latin American brothers who are being assaulted by this very stupid law, which incites hatred and discrimination. My truck won't move. Don't enter Florida. Nobody enter Florida."
Another backed him up.
“I’m not going to Florida. I’m with you," @elarracas91.1 said, translated from Spanish. "I’m a trucker and Cuban. The race needs help and here we are. Strength.”
“Look at how many truckers are behind me," he said. "We have lines and lines and lines of truckers.
“Remember one thing. In Florida, more goes in than comes out so if we don’t take anything to Florida. Tell me? What are they going to have? Let’s see what the governor is going to do. Is his little truck going to take things to his lousy racist people he has there?”
[MENTION=26196]sanchez[/MENTION]manuel33 referred to a similar protest a few years ago when truckers supported a Cuban trucker in a Colorado accident, and called for truckers to unite to support immigrants.
“What they are doing in Florida is not right," he said. "I repeat: My truck is not entering Florida. I’m not entering Florida. So don’t transport to Florida − in support of the immigrant. We are all immigrants.”
Immigrant advocates said Florida’s approach targets a community already struggling to survive with new criminal penalties and restrictions. Immigrants living in Florida, legally and illegally, represent a huge share of the state’s workforce, leaders added. And now with out-of-state driver's licenses for undocumented people invalid in Florida, some are concerned they will be profiled and stopped.
“I’ve been getting a lot of calls from people asking me if they should leave the state,” Pai said. “The undocumented community is very scared to even show up for work.”
Are grocery shelves in Florida going empty because of the truckers' strike?
A video posted on TikTok Sunday and shared on other social media shows empty refrigerated shelves. "No groceries smh sad these truckers weren't playing when they said they were not delivering anything to Florida!!!"
However, this video posted by PJ's Journey has not been verified and shows full cases of food to one side of the depleted ones, with no indication of why these specific shelves are empty. Grocery stores often empty shelves to clean and restock or if there is a mechanical problem with the refrigeration. The store in the video was not named and there have been no reports of similar outages at other Florida grocery stores.
What did AOC say about the truckers' strike in Florida?
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, suggested that any problems with Latin American supply lines would be the fault of DeSantis and Florida lawmakers.
Anti-immigrant policies reap what they sow," she tweeted Saturday. "DeSantis' Florida is about to find that out.
"The US has such deep needs right now, particularly in labor. Yet policymakers (of ALL stripes) take our immigrant communities for granted.
"No más. Time to stop biting the hands that feed."
How many immigrants live and work in Florida?
According to the Migration Policy Institute, about 21% of Florida's population is foreign-born. The Farmworkers Association of Florida, a grassroots nonprofit that advocates for social and environmental justice with farmworkers, estimates that there are about 300,000 farm workers in Florida who live in the state illegally, making up about 60% of the state’s farm workers.
Click Above Link To View Social Media Videos And Charts
amp.cnn.com
www.nbcnews.com
