Alarming news!
Governor Ron DeSantis has signed
a new anti-immigration bill for the state of Florida.
What does it mean for you?
Should you be scared?
Or will you get deported and will life end as you know it for you inside
the United States?
Recently, I have been getting a lot of phone calls from my current
clients, potential clients, and also from my followers on YouTube
and Facebook and Instagram and TikTok asking me,
should they be worried about this new anti-immigration bill in Florida
and wanting to know how they should protect themselves
from getting caught up in the sweep.
For those of you who don't know, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed
into law a new immigration bill that is essentially designed
to make life unlivable for undocumented immigrants inside the state of Florida.
Now that it has passed, the bill is expected to take effect July 1st.
Many see this bill as DeSantis’s way of building support within his Republican
base in anticipation of his bid for the presidential campaign.
So this bill is as extreme as possible.
He is doing his utmost best to try to beat out former
President Trump's anti-immigration stances.
So we are going to go over some of the most important provisions
in this bill that you as an undocumented immigrant should be aware of.
And second, we'll talk about
how you should protect yourself and what you can expect.
So here are some of the restrictions
that are getting the most attention from the immigrant community.
First of all, there will be an I.D. restriction.
This law prevents counties and cities in Florida from issuing an ID card
or documents to anyone who cannot prove that they are legally present
inside the U.S.
And this law will make the use of IDs obtained in other states
such as New York and Washington and New Jersey, where undocumented
immigrants can go ahead and get an ID despite the fact that they don't
have legal immigration status, it will make those IDs null and void.
Without a proper ID an immigrant is essentially rendered
unable to operate in modern society, unable to drive, unable to open a bank
account, unable to do the normal things that most of us take for granted.
Employment restrictions.
This law makes it illegal for businesses to continue employing someone
who is not legally present inside the United States and requires
employers to use the E-Verify system to confirm the eligibility
of new employees within three business days of hiring them.
And if a business is caught employing undocumented immigrants,
they can be fined up to $10,000 per violation
and will be at risk of losing their business license.
Some important details to note is that this does not apply to businesses
employing fewer than 25 employees, and it does not apply to existing employees.
Only new employees hired after July 1st.
Travel restrictions.
This bill originally had criminal penalties imposed for persons caught
transporting undocumented immigrants within the Florida state lines.
But now that crazy provision at least has been modified a little bit
and now the criminal penalties are imposed upon anyone transporting
undocumented persons between the Florida state lines.
Now, the final version says that it is a third degree felony
to transport anyone undocumented into the state of Florida.
Health care restrictions.
Once this law goes into effect on July 1st, hospitals
that accept Medicaid will be required to confirm the immigration status
of their patients and then submit a quarterly report to the government.
This is obviously to discourage undocumented
immigrants from seeking medical attention due to fears
of possibly getting reported as a result of being in the hospital.
However, it is illegal to share information
about an individual when they seek health care.
But the mere fact that a hospital will not be required to report
this information will have a chilling effect on immigrants.
Now, thousands of immigrants have already left the state of Florida
and there are various news reports showing fields
lying empty inside the state of Florida that are not being worked on.
And other construction jobs and other sorts of industries that rely heavily
upon undocumented immigrant workforces that are now depleted.
And from my own experience with my own clients, as well as from reports
that we are seeing all over the news, currently undocumented persons
living inside the state of Florida are shook with fear
and are being really, really cautious and are very afraid of what will happen.
So if you are an immigrant living inside the state of Florida,
is there anything that you should do and should you be worried?
And how can you protect yourself?
This law is not going to change anything for you right now.
What this bill is trying to do is
it is trying to stem and discourage
immigrants from coming into the state of Florida
and trying to impose other types of penalties
in order to try to force people out, such as not issuing
licenses, is not recognizing licenses for state IDs from other places,
fining workforces where immigrant labor is heavily used.
These are meant to be deterrent measures that will disincentivize
immigrants from considering Florida as a home state.
If you're already in the state of Florida as an undocumented immigrant,
if you have an immigration application already pending with USCIS,
you are going to be in a little bit more of a protected status
because you can show that you have something pending.
And as somebody who might encounter ICE officials or other immigration
officials, you can use this to show that you have something pending
and that you are kind of in a period of authorized stay.
There are many types of immigration
applications where you can have applied for VAWA
or for a T visa where you can actually get a license inside Florida
with the simple receipt of your case or your prima facie determination.
We have several VAWA clients, and T visa clients who were
successfully able to obtain a driver's license inside the state of Florida
without even having to wait for their application to get approved
or without even getting approved for a work permit.
The most important thing when these sorts of laws get passed is this:
I know it's easier said than done, but there is no point in living in fear.
Find out what you're eligible for, get those immigration applications filed.
It will give you some measure of protection and it will give you
some measure of peace.
Consider contacting a qualified and experienced and well-intentioned
immigration lawyer to find out what your options are.
If you have any questions or would like to share any additional information
about how this bill is impacting your life, leave a comment below to this video.
And if you would like a case evaluation with my office,
call us at 212-248-7907.
Even though I am based in New York, I work with immigrants
all over the United States
and we have dozens of clients in Florida that we are helping today.
I'm am Moumita Rahman.
If you have found this video helpful, I would appreciate you giving my channel
a follow in for you to follow me anywhere you find me on social media.
If this knowledge is valuable to you, please share it
with your friends, because I know that the fear is real.
And if you don't understand what is behind this bill,
I don't want you to make yourself sick with anxiety and worry.
It is hard enough existing, especially in a crazy state like Florida.
My name is Moumita Rahman, I'll see you next time.