The bill,<\/a> which advanced Thursday in the Florida House, would make the use of E-Verify mandatory. The federal database allows employers to confirm a worker\u2019s legal status.<\/p>\nOnly companies with 25 or more employees are required to use the system under current state law.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the vast majority of cases, we\u2019re going to know pretty instantaneously whether or not the person you\u2019re hiring is authorized,\u201d said Rep. Berny Jacques, a Clearwater Republican sponsoring the bill.<\/p>\n
Violations could result in financial penalties, including fines of up to $1,000 per day for employers who fail to comply.<\/p>\n
Labor advocates, however, argue that immigration enforcement should remain a federal responsibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cStates cannot fix the immigration system in this country with these haphazard, headline-chasing approaches like requiring E-Verify,\u201d said Rich Templin,\u00a0 political director for the Florida AFL-CIO.<\/p>\n
The legislation is part of Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019s ongoing efforts to combat illegal immigration. But Democrats in the House say the measure does little to address larger problems with the nation\u2019s immigration system.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think both parties have agreed that there are things that could be done about immigration,\u201d said House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat. \u201cThe challenge has been getting those done in a bipartisan way and advancing policies that actually would help the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to data from the Center for Immigration Studies, about 56 percent of undocumented workers in Florida are employed at workplaces not currently required to use E-Verify.<\/p>\n
The proposal, which stalled in the Senate last session, will need Senate approval before it can reach the governor\u2019s desk. It\u2019s got one more committee stop in the House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Florida lawmakers are moving forward with a proposal that would require all employers in the state,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3140,6074,28,30,29,2203,115,139,99,135,835],"class_list":["post-80304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-capital-connection","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-jason-delgado","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-politics","tag-tampa","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80304","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=80304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}