On Thursday, May 29, officials from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Florida Highway Patrol and four other state and federal agencies swarmed a Tallahassee construction site and started checking immigration status for at least 200 people in possibly the largest single-day operation yet in Florida.
More than 100 people were taken into custody at the site of the construction of a student housing complex near Florida State University.
On May 13, ICE had targeted constructions sites in Wildwood, south of The Villages, arresting more than two dozen people. According to a Homeland Security video posted to X, they were from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras and some had been deported before.
Under Florida law, it is illegal to knowingly employ, hire, recruit or refer any person who is not legally allowed to work in the state. In February, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a package of bills addressing illegal immigration, including one that made simply entering the state without legal status a crime with a mandatory nine-month jail sentence, although that has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
So why are construction sites still hiring undocumented immigrants?
“The Feds are pursuing the subcontractor responsible for hiring the illegal alien workers,” DeSantis said in an X post, when asked that question. After the Wildwood raid, Homeland Security said it was investigating whether construction companies were hiring undocumented immigrants in Florida, “the fastest growing region in the U.S.”
Can construction companies in Florida hire undocumented immigrants?
For many years, the Sunshine State has looked the other way with porous immigration laws to help support — or at least not heavily restrict — the agricultural, hospitality and construction industries that relied on a steady source of inexpensive labor to keep costs down.
A study from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found that about 1 in 10 people in Florida in 2022 were noncitizen immigrants, and they made up about 12% of the total workforce, 34% of the construction workforce, a whopping 47% in farming and fishing, and 17% in transportation.
However, undocumented workers may be paid under the table and off the books, making a true number hard to count. And until recently, few companies saw any penalties for hiring them.
When asked if the day’s dramatic raids were a warning to construction companies who hire undocumented immigrants, the governor’s office deflected questions to HSI. DeSantis did comment on social media, saying: “State law enforcement making a huge impact on immigration enforcement efforts. Major bust in Tallahassee!”
What are the penalties for hiring undocumented immigrants in Florida?
According to Florida Statutes §448.09, the penalties for employing or hiring undocumented immigrants are:
In 2020, under pressure from DeSantis, the Republican-led Legislature passed a law requiring state employers, contractors and subcontractors with 25 or more employees to use the federal E-Verify system when hiring workers, which effectively exempted the state’s powerful agriculture industry.
Three years later, DeSantis signed SB 1718 that, among other things, added that requirement to private companies with 25 or more employees.
However, the Tampa Bay Times pointed out that still accounted for less than 20% of Florida companies and wasn’t difficult to get around.
When state lawmakers passed the newest anti-immigration laws during a special session in February, they did not expand the E-Verify requirements and did not increase penalties for companies that violated them, the Tampa Bay Times said. An amendment from Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Miami, to remove the 25-employee threshold was ruled out of order, although DeSantis said he supported it.
A new bill in this year’s Florida Legislature that would finally have required all private employers in Florida to use E-Verify for any number of employees passed the House but was one of about 1,300 bills withdrawn and indefinitely postponed in the Senate after the session bogged down over state budget arguments.
Have any Florida companies been fined for hiring undocumented immigrants?
The DeSantis administration had not taken action against employees violating the hiring requirements, despite the tightened laws, until January, when DeSantis sent warning letters to 40 companies after Republican lawmakers started asking about the lack of enforcement.
During discussions of new immigration bills, Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, pointed out that only eight or nine companies had been flagged by the state for potential violations under the E-Verify law.
DeSantis blamed the lack of funding for E-Verify violation enforcement, but the new bills the next month didn’t add any more and there was no request for funds in the budget request submitted in October.
DeSantis’ social media post after the Tallahassee arrests and the dramatically increased ICE presence enforcing President Donald Trump’s plans to deport millions of immigrants suggest that more crackdowns are coming.
More than 1,100 immigrants were detained across Florida during five days in May as part of “Operation Tidal Wave,” a joint immigration operation between ICE and Florida state and local law enforcement that Larry Keefe, executive director of the State Board of Immigration Enforcement, called the “Florida blueprint” for federal authorities to enact mass deportations.
Some federal investigations have resulted in penalties for Florida businesses.
In January, a Fort Pierce building company was sentenced in federal court to serve two years of probation for employing undocumented workers after a Homeland Security investigation. Martinez Builders Supply, which does business on the Treasure Coast as East Coast Truss, was also required to pay a fine of $100,000 after it had already forfeited $450,000 to the government as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors.
Gray Rohrer, Elena Barrera and Ana Goñi-Lessan of the USA TODAY Network – Florida contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: With ICE raids increasing, why are construction companies still hiring immigrants?
Reporting by C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
