June 1st, immigrants across the state of Florida participated in a protest of Senate Bill(SB) 1718. SB1718 has been regarded as an especially harsh anti-immigration bill.
Protestors held a day without immigrants which saw construction sites, tomato fields, scores of restaurants, shops and other small businesses not open their doors in protest of the recent laws against undocumented immigrants.
One especially critiqued provision in the law is the requirement for hospitals that receive state and medicaid dollars to include a citizen question on intake forms that also has an option to decline answering with an earlier version of the bill requiring patients to answer if they are in the country legally. This citizenship status provision in hospitals has been cited as possibly dissuading immigrants from seeking medical care when in need of it.
Governor DeSantis who has recently announced his official run for the 2024 presidency, is largely responsible for this bill and some others targeting LGBTQ expression that has led a couple civil rights groups to issue travel warnings to Florida for hispanics and other minority groups.
A spokesman for the governor’s office recently said the new law targets illegal immigration, not those who are in the U.S. legally.
Isaac Dubon, who owns a construction business in South Florida, said immigrants are important to Florida because they do jobs that others won’t.
“We work a lot in this country, 15 or 16 straight hours nonstop,” Dubon said. “We go through a lot. We pay taxes too, like everyone else, and we sustain the country’s economy.”
This story was first reported on by Daniel Kozin and Mike Schneider of the Associated Press and by McKenna Schueler of Orlando Weekly.
