The organization\u2019s study<\/a>, titled \u201cEnd the ICE Tax\u201d and shared exclusively with Florida Politics, lists Florida among five states where immigrants make up the highest share of the labor force. Florida, California, Nevada, New Jersey and New York are home to roughly half the nation\u2019s foreign-born population.<\/p>\n Researchers say that could explain why Florida has suffered one of the worst employment dips<\/a> in the country as state and federal leaders step up immigration enforcement. America\u2019s Voice said Florida voters should understand the connection between job losses, particularly in construction, hospitality and healthcare, and the anti-immigration policies imposed under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cFlorida families are footing the bill for Donald Trump and Stephen Miller\u2018s radical and extreme mass deportation agenda. Florida officials have embraced this administration\u2019s mass deportation crusade and Floridians are paying the price,\u201d said Joanna Kuebler, Chief of Programs at America\u2019s Voice.<\/p>\n \u201cRestaurants in Orlando losing nearly half their revenue, garden nurseries in Homestead sitting idle, construction sites silent and inactive, and home health aides, who make up 60 percent of Florida\u2019s care workforce, swept away just as families need them most. It\u2019s time for this administration to end the ICE tax and put Florida families ahead of a reckless policy that has driven up costs on everything from groceries to home health care.\u201d<\/p>\n The report outlines several impacts of immigration enforcement on Florida businesses.<\/p>\n In Orlando, restaurants have lost an estimated 40% of their revenue because of staff resignations.<\/p>\n Florida has the second-highest share of immigrant home health aides in the nation, 60%, behind only New York\u2019s 74%. The report said the state\u2019s healthcare workforce has faced the threat of deportation as demand for services keeps growing.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, construction employment across the five hardest-hit states has fallen 1.3% since the start of the Trump administration, according to the report, even as the rest of the country grew its workforce by 3.3%. Single-family home permits in those five states fell 9.2% between June 2024 and June 2026, while permits elsewhere rose 3%.<\/p>\n As new homes become more scarce, the average cost of building one in the five hard-hit states jumped 13.1% over the same period, from $304,312 to $344,112. Costs rose 2% on average elsewhere.<\/p>\n Florida under Gov. Ron DeSantis has been an eager partner in enforcement. The report notes Florida accounts for 31% of all 287(g) agreements<\/a>, which let local law enforcement agencies enforce federal immigration law in partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That\u2019s the highest share of any state, and the agreements are required under a law signed by DeSantis<\/a>.<\/p>\n The state has often led the nation in enforcement operations as well. One week in May 2025 saw more than 1,100 arrests, the largest one-week, single-state immigration operation in ICE\u2019s history, researchers said.<\/p>\n The report shows Miami-Dade County has more pending deportation cases than any jurisdiction in the country, more than 146,000 as of August 2025. The study also includes stories from Homestead nursery owners who say a shrinking workforce has delayed deliveries and idled operations as workers stay home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As state and federal governments crack down on immigration, Florida businesses could continue to feel the squeeze. That\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[149114,409,28,30,29,1841,45810,412,130097],"class_list":["post-368102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-americas-voice","tag-donald-trump","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-immigration","tag-immigration-crackdown","tag-ron-desantis","tag-stephen-miller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tgh_60297_01_FloridasPremier_Display_728x90.gif\")
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