Florida’s E-Verify Push, Explained

Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to go further in cracking down on illegal employment in the state.

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Landscaper Carlos Morales, a member of WeCount!, a labor union of low wage immigrant workers and their families, in August 2022. (Photo by Cindy Karp/Washington Post/ Getty Images)

In 2021 Florida became the 22nd state to mandate employers use E-Verify, the federal system for checking the immigration status of potential workers.

The mandate applies only to state employers and contractors, but now Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—ostensibly preparing for a presidential bid—wants to expand E-Verify mandates to include the private sector as well, part of a larger immigration package he announced at a news conference last month. 

“Florida is a law and order state, and we won’t turn a blind eye to the dangers of Biden’s Border Crisis,” DeSantis said in a February statement.

But DeSantis and the Republican supermajority in Florida’s legislature faces opposition from a group that historically has often found common ground with the GOP—the business community.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Dave in Houston

    Ah yes, the America of the GOP: where you have to get permission from the government to get a job. Absolutely ridiculous.

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  2. Danielmedas1

    In a free country it seems pretty silly I'm not allowed to pay non citizens for labor.

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    1. Georges

      You are. The operative description is “legal non citizens”.
      (I hope you don’t need a reminder that as a sovereign country we have a say over who gets to come here and who gets to stay …)

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    JohnM.

    I appreciate the reporting and the helpful explanations of E-Verify. Thank you again, Harvest.

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    1. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
      Harvest Prude vertical-nib Author

      Thank you!

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  4. Jim S

    As much as I find GOP rhetoric on immigration almost hilariously overwrought at least this is an attempt to fix the mismatch between political posturing and reality. There really is no excuse for making immigration your cause celebre but then NOT enforcing the law. Republicans have been double dipping here for decades.

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    1. Danielmedas1

      I would rather they just give up the rhetoric rather than try putting it in practice.

      On the other hand, maybe once they try to put it into practice they'll realize how dumb it is.

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    CJ

    I absolutely HATE DeSantis with a fiery burning passion, probably more than Trump does - it might be the only thing I agree with Trump on.

    I fully understand this is just a political smokescreen and ploy. It's wild that plenty of Americans won't understand that at all... But if this were actually passed and actually implemented and actually enforced, I would vote for DeSantis for President until I died.

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    1. DTruitt

      You need to see a psychiatrist. Really. It's never a healthy thing to hate. Period.

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        JohnM.

        This is what happens when you substitute politics for religion.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    It will likely push illegal immigrants into independent contractor roles. The tree trimmers in this area are mostly illegal immigrants. They lack insurance (not good if they drop a tree on something valuable), can get hurt (they are often reckless), but do charge less than some of the firms.

    I'm lucky, a neighbor has a tree trimming service, so he handles our entire neighborhood. But he'll admit after a disaster he hires whoever has a chain saw, and a good chunk of them speak English as a second language.

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  7. Donnybrook

    So basically, people are against the use of illegal labor for others, but not themselves.

    Substitute “government assistance,” “abortion,” or a host of other “bad things” and you sum up human nature.

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  8. Pishposh

    Lets game this out.

    1) Florida mandates eVerify
    2) Florida businesses stop hiring cheap undocumented workers
    3) Undocumented workers leave FL to find jobs in other states
    4) Because they need to raise wages to pick crops the price of FL Oranges and OJ goes up
    5) FL producers lose business to lower cost alternatives and some businesses fail
    6) Business in other states improves
    7) FL businesses push for increased green cards etc.
    8) We argue nonstop about it while the undocumented age, have children that are by law US citizens...
    9) after yeas and years we realize that the argument was pointless and we start documenting the undocumented and bringing them out of the shadows.

    Maybe we should just skip to step 9...

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    1. MathewA

      The problem is we already tried a step 9. But it was supposed to be combined with real enforcement to make sure we didn't just have to keep repeating step 9. That didn't happen.

      Also yes sometimes it's cheaper to do things illegally or un-ethically. That doesn't necessarily mean we should just get rid of the laws.

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      CJ

      Yep. It doesn't really work any other way. Do a trade to end birthright citizenship/chain migration, give the Dems the amnesty/pathway to citizenship they want, and actually fix the problem. Or spend the next 20 years continuing to beat our heads against the wall achieving jack squat.

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        Scarlette Tarte

        We would have to change the constitution to end birthright citizenship, via an amendment. Which is unlikely to pass.

        So that idea goes nowhere.

        The easiest way to solve the "immigration crisis" ( how is something a crisis when it has been happening for 60 years?) is to give workers who want to work in the US, but not live here, a work pass.

        And for the rest? Let them apply for citizenship, vet them, and if they pass, make them citizens. It's that easy. It doesn't need to take years either. Let them pay a fee to apply, something reasonable.

        Emergency situations can be handled with the asylum system, which no one will try to game because there will be no need to anymore.

        We need immigrants. They work like crazy, they support our entitlement system, and we don't have enough children to make the money to pay the taxes for all the nice things we want.

        Frankly, I don't see the downside to immigration and never have. I have been exposed to them all my life, from the Vietnamese boat people who took over the fading Louisiana shrimping industry, to Haitians and Cubans, to Salvadorans, and Mexicans, Greeks and Koreans. All of them in my home city of New Orleans came in and went on to become successful in shrimping, restaurants, real estate (buying old house and fixing them up enough to make rental properties, nail salons, donut shops, taxi drivers, construction...you name it.

        Can someone here articulate why they see immigration as a negative? I mean, as an unlimited and legal process? I understand why people get upset about illegal immigration. But why, if we just made the process open and easier and legal, why is anyone against it?

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        1. Dave Rice

          Regarding "unlimited", my hometown public schools and government has to include 5-6 languages in notices sent to homes. It can create an added burden on a community. Not that this should be a reason to close borders, but it can pose real challenges for communities to handle.

          I also saw how long it took for my Irish stepmother to get US citizenship. "Easier" is definitely needed.

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          JohnM.

          "But why, if we just made the process open and easier and legal, why is anyone against it?"
          I'm not, with those caveats in place. I just think that we have to have secure borders and sensible restrictions like Canada.

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            Scarlette Tarte

            No, we don't have to have restrictions. Except to keep out criminals. So why do you want the restrictions?

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      2. Slaffey

        It's not clear to me that you can trade away birthright citizenship.

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  9. CatoTheElder

    As is nearly always the case, much of the argument centers on two things: costs (real, perceived, or threatened) to businesses which fear that they, but not their competitors, will have to pay, and rock, mud, and bomb-throwing by the dominant political factions at each other. No meaningful discussion of policy. In this case, not even by those who crafted the bill, it seems.

    No sane person fails to see, on even cursory examination, that American immigration policy and American immigration reality are two entirely different things. Much of the American economy is now built upon a foundation of “undocumented workers”, and many employers do, indeed, willfully ignore legal proscriptions against hiring workers who do not have legal rights to work in this country. Further complicating things is that much of the American political left uses any mention or discussion of work restrictions that preclude the hiring of undocumented workers as a cudgel, calling those who favor even just simply following the law racists, anti-immigration, and worse. Also further complicating things is that much of the American political right just wants a big wall, and sees everyone on the left as wanting to bring in illegal foreign workers to steal American jobs, etc. Finally, there’s of course the problem that there are some racist, anti-immigration people out there, and there are those who want to essentially erase the borders and let everyone come and go as they please.

    It’s all a mess, and no one wants to be responsible for their own actions, it seems. The cherry on top of the s*** sundae is the fact that any politician who tries to even think about maybe talking reasonably about immigration policy runs a risk of being primaried by someone else come next election season, braying about how the reasonable, responsible politician (there are still a few of this vanishing species) has “sold out”, etc., etc.

    What do we want immigration policy to be? Ummmm…..we want it to be fair. And we want it to take into account what immigrants might be fleeing from. And we don’t want to allow bad people to immigrate. No terrorists! What are the other kinds of bad people we don’t want? Uh, lemme think—we’ll have to get back to you on that. We want to “bring in” good workers. We want to encourage immigration of the talented, smart, and wealthy. And the needy. The poor. Oh, and the sick. And the elderly, lame, disabled, differently abled, abused, orphaned, forgotten, victimized, uneducated, tall, short, of color, trans-everything, deaf, left-handed, myopic, and speech-challenged. Stutterers especially. Oh, and cat lovers, soft porn addicts, and those with hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, or ADD. And truck drivers. Chinchilla ranchers, pot growers, and raptor rescue specialists. How many of each? Ummm….. How many, total? Well, I guess we add up all the numbers from the other one, but…. What rules do they have to follow? I don’t know—do we really need rules? Isn’t that just more bureaucracy? What should be the requirements to be followed by immigrants wishing to work here? Huh. We’re back to that, eh?

    We don’t really know what we want. Except that it’s gotta be fair. Did we say that? And just. Is it fair that undocumented workers take jobs that actual, like, documented workers could be taking? And what’s this about “work Americans won’t do”? What happened to free markets? If employers can’t find workers, they can offer more pay and benefits, right? Oh, but nobody wants to have to pay the guy roofing the house a decent wage, ‘cuz that might eat into the money left for the company’s owner to pay his country club fees. Brazen disregard for legalities is the norm when it comes to hiring undocumented workers for some types of employers, especially in border/near-border states. Is this okay? [Hint: No.]

    So, what do we do? We kick the can down the road until a strong-man type shows up and makes the trains run on time and gets the leak in my roof fixed. And then we don’t ask questions about how it happened. Especially questions that might annoy the wrong people. Whoever they are.

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    1. MathewA

      Overall good list. I would add to it that the level of immigration needs to be slow enough to allow for assimilation.

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        Scarlette Tarte

        That's a canard. It has been shown, time after time, study after study, that the first generation here has the hardest time assimilating (language barriers and cultural ones...it's hard to change a lifetime of behaviors and such) the second generation is mostly assimilated and by the third, they are as American as people whose ancestors came on the Mayflower.

        I am moving to Portugal. No matter how much I love that country, and no matter how much I try, I will never be assimilated. Because the language will always be second and unnatural for me. Because I am older and it's harder to learn and retain new info as you age. Because culturally, I am American. I can try, but I won't succeed in becoming fully assimilated.

        But my granddaughters likely will be, certainly much more than I ever will be, and if they have kids, those kids will be straight up Portuguese. (If we all stay in Portugal)

        That's how it works. It is just a long process, and to hold up immigration until there is some magic "ok, they are assimilated now, let's let the next group in" is just a way to stop immigration.

        It's unnecessary as well. Immigrants can get by. There are services to assist them. The communities they reside in have people that have been here longer willing to help. They don't need full assimilation in order to be successful.

        It just makes Americans more comfortable. But it's not necessary for success or achievement by the immigrant.

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    EricRemcon@gmail

    You could look at it as a positive thing that increasing the use of E-Verify is being talked about, but it will likely be counterproductive in the end. You can tell that the Florida push is nothing more than a political smokescreen just by looking at who is pushing it (a populist presidential candidate, RD). If you need more proof, look at the pitiful support for enforcement or the lack of expanding work visas. It is just a political ploy that will have little impact except in a few high profile “example” cases. If studies are done 5 years from now, opponents will say “See E-Verify does not work”.

    Just like most other things in the political world, it is all show and no go, to pretend to be doing something; instead of trying effectively work on the problem. (I am a proponent of E-Verify if it was done seriously).

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