Arizona-style Migrant Law Would Hurt Florida Economy, Group Says

Published April 05, 2011

Miami – The Florida Immigrant Coalition is afraid that a law as tough as Arizona's SB1070 - or even tougher - would plunge the state into a severe economic recession since the area depends so much on Hispanic investment, labor and spending.

Subhash Kateel, coordinator of FLIC's "Somos Florida/We Are Florida" campaign, said in an interview with Efe that these three sectors have saved the state from "full recession."

"If some part of that delicate balance is altered, the whole state would be at risk," the co-founder and co-Director of Families for Freedom, a group dedicated to defending immigrants in the process of being deported, said.

A dozen immigration bills have been introduced into the state legislature, but apparently only two have a chance of reaching the floor: HB7089 and SB2040.

The first is an initiative of Republican Rep. William Snyder that would give police the authority to investigate the immigration status of people taken into custody if there is a reasonable suspicion of their being undocumented.

It also requires private companies to use the federal program E-Verify to check on the legal status of their workers.

The state Senate Judiciary Committee was due Monday to take up SB2040, sponsored by GOP Sen. Anitere Flores, a Cuban-American.

Flores toned down the original version by not demanding the use of E-Verify for new workers who can present a current ID such as a passport or a driver's license.

But it does maintain the provision that all sheriff's departments in the state must establish agreements with the Department of Homeland Security to implement program 287 (g) to detain foreigners with a criminal record, and that all police departments must participate in the Secure Communities program to verify the immigration status of those under arrest.

If these bills are passed, FLIC said that "it would increase racial discrimination."

"In reality it will have the same impact that it had in Arizona and would create the same kind of situations, if not worse, in Florida, because the police in every county would have the same powers as immigration agents to ask people to show their papers at any time," Kateel said.

Esteban Bovo, who recently resigned his seat in Florida's lower house and his chairmanship of the Florida Hispanic Legislative Caucus, told Efe that while the bills "are nothing like the Arizona law," they are unnecessary and potentially harmful.

"If they pass, they won't be anything like the one in Arizona. But they'll leave a bad taste and will send the wrong message from a state that lives on international trade," he said.

With regard to the economic impact, FLIC's Kateel said that more Hispanics leaving Florida will mean more homes in foreclosure, fewer tourists on the beaches and fewer shoppers in the malls.

If all undocumented aliens were deported from Florida, the state would lose activities that contribute $43 billion to the economy, along with 262,436 jobs, according to the Perryman Group report.

Tourism, which poured $60.9 billion into the state economy in 2009, is another area that would be hit by an "anti-immigrant law," Kateel said.

Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina accounted for 1.7 million tourists who visited Florida in 2009, according to official figures from Visit Florida.

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