Three groups of activists and defense lawyers for Cuban and Venezuelan immigrants protested this Thursday in Miami for a controversial bill signed this week by Governor Ron DeSantis.
The law requires employers to verify the immigration legality of workers through the system E-Verify, a federal database; increases sentences for human trafficking; prohibits undocumented immigrants from using out-of-state driver’s licenses; and requires hospitals to report costs of care.
It also finances a program to transport immigrants to other states, something that Democrats have repeatedly criticized. It is a more official version of the tax-financed flights from Florida for about 50 Venezuelans since the border to Martha’s Vineyard last yearsponsored by DeSantis.
Immigrant defense organizations criticized these measures (Venezuelan American Caucus, Miami Freedom Project and Florida Immigration Coalition). Adelys Ferro of the Venezuelan American Caucus said DeSantis was manipulating desperate migrants fleeing humanitarian crises.
“Immigrants, and especially Venezuelans, have learned the hard way that we are pawns in the political game of a Republican governor and a Republican legislature that uses us for their political games or when they need to win votes in Florida,” Ferro said. “It is an act of political cowardice,” he emphasized.
Cuban-American Ana Sofía Peláez, founder of the Miami Freedom Project, a Latina-led nonprofit focused on creating “a political home” for progressive people, denounced Cuban-American Republican state legislators for supporting the bill.
“This bill was passed with the complicity of legislators, Cuban-Americans like myself, who proudly flaunt their own immigrant origins to campaign and then turn their backs on those seeking the same refuge our family sought and received in this very place. . This is especially egregious and an act of basic political cowardice,” Peláez added.
DeSantis has made immigration policy one of his main topics. Immigrants “are causing big problems that will get much worse with the end of Title 42 [durante la medianoche de este jueves]DeSantis said after signing the bill into law.
