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1. A plan to ‘eliminate incentives’

There is a rich history of immigration in Florida, but the cause for this current moment starts with Senate Bill 1718, which was signed into law last May.

Championed by the current Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, the far-reaching legislation aims to crack down on undocumented labor.

It requires hospitals to include questions about immigration status, and makes it a felony to knowingly transport someone with undocumented status into the state.

DeSantis has boasted about how it has been “the strongest legislation against illegal immigration anywhere in the country.”

Part of his philosophy has focused on eliminating “carrots” that encourage people to come to the U.S. without documentation saying,

“People are going to come, if they get benefits. And so what you want to do is say there’s not benefits for coming illegally. You’re either here as a native or you come legally,”

2. A far reaching impact

One of the major things about this plan is that it doesn’t just impact people from coming to Florida.

It has already had a demonstrable impact on the nearly one million undocumented immigrants already living in Florida.

Some residents have already taken notice, like Manuel Vasquez, the owner of an ice cream parlor in Fort Myers Florida, who says he has seen a noticeable drop in his clientele. He says about 30% of his customers have left, and the ones who stayed are afraid.

Vasquez says that some of them have described how they have no choice but to drive to get to work.

“And what if I don’t make it back home? What happens to my family? My children?” Vasquez recalls being told.

Mostly, he says people went north, to the Carolinas or Georgia.

So while the human impact is already palpable in these communities, what about the economic impact?

3. A view from the strawberry fields

One of the key elements in Florida’s strict immigration law is a provision that makes it much harder to hire undocumented workers. And like much of the country, the state is already dealing with a tight labor market.

Farmer Fidel Sanchez instructs his workers to get rid of the fruit that fell and rotted on the ground – which there is a lot of. He worries about how long he will be able to keep going.

The Federal government estimates that nationwide, over 40% of farmworkers are undocumented.

Sanchez says, the effect of the law was immediate. Families he’d worked with for 20 or 30 years, headed north from one day to the next.

The government doesn’t care, he says. Maybe they think the crops are gonna pick themselves.

The Florida Policy Institute, estimates that this immigration law could cost the state economy $12.6 billion in its first year.

This episode was produced by Connor Donovan, Noah Caldwell and Christine Arrasmith with audio engineering by Tiffany Vera Castro.