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MIAMI-DADE WORKERS STRIKE TO PROTEST FLORIDA IMMIGRATION LAW | MIAMI HERALD

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IMMIGRATION


‘CERRADO’: MIAMI-AREA HISPANIC BUSINESSES CLOSE TO PROTEST FLORIDA’S IMMIGRATION
LAW

By Omar Rodríguez Ortiz

June 01, 2023 7:12 PM
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 * 
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A boy walks past closed businesses on Washington Avenue in Homestead, Florida on
June 1. Local Businesses closed their doors for the day to protest a new state
law that targets migrants. Jose A. Iglesias jiglesias@elnuevoherald.com

Homestead, FL

A Homestead open-air strip mall of mostly family-owned Hispanic businesses is
usually packed in the afternoon with people eating at restaurants, buying
medication at a pharmacy or transferring money to their loved ones in Latin
America.

These South Florida businesses are credited with keeping retail in downtown
Homestead alive as more and more businesses congregate around the big box stores
along US 1 and further east.

But on Thursday afternoon the Pioneer Mall, 224 Washington Ave., appeared to be
a ghost town with nearly all of its restaurants and stores closed. Mexican
restaurants, taquerías and a bakery also shut down in neighboring Florida City.
Flyers posted on the businesses’ doors and windows alerted clients that they
were shutting down June 1 in support of the immigrant community — the target of
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ immigration crackdown.

Click to resize

Similar scenes were reported across the Sunshine State, from the farmworker town
of Immokalee in Southwest Florida to Tallahassee and from Jacksonville to Miami
in what people were calling a day without immigrants.

In Homestead, the agricultural center of South Florida, numerous workers went on
strike, protested at the city’s town hall, boycotted area businesses and called
their state elected officials. In Immokalee, one of the major centers of tomato
growing in the United States, around 100 people marched waving Mexican and
American flags and chanting in Spanish “sí se puede,” which roughly translates
to “yes we can.”

Last month, DeSantis signed a bill into law that limits undocumented migrant
labor, ends community-funded programs that give undocumented immigrants
identification cards and toughens penalties against those who transport
undocumented immigrants into the state.



Florida’s law requires that hospitals track and report the immigration status of
patients, that local governments withhold services from people who cannot
provide proof of citizenship and that all employers with 25 or more employees
verify the immigration status of most workers using the federal electronic
system, E-Verify. Although most of the provisions in the law will take effect
July 1, the employer penalties do not take effect until July 1, 2024.


Homestead, Florida - June 1, 2023 - Signs supporting the strike on the front
door of a closed business on Washington Avenue in Homestead. Many businesses
closed their doors today to protest SB 1718. Among its provisions, the strict
new law limits social services for undocumented immigrants, allocates millions
more tax dollars to expand DeSantis’ migrant relocation program, invalidates
driver’s licenses issued to undocumented people by other states, and requires
hospitals that get Medicaid dollars to ask for a patient’s immigration status.
Jose A. Iglesias jiglesias@elnuevoherald.com

Alberto Valle, 38, told the Miami Herald that he and 14 other employees of a
landscaping company didn’t go to work on Thursday. The father of five and
Homestead made the difficult decision of losing a day’s salary even though he
sends money to his wife and kids in Guatemala so they can buy groceries, clothes
and medicine. He went to Pioneer Mall to eat after finding out that a nearby
Mexican restaurant was closed but found only shuttered doors.

“I was surprised to see so many businesses closed and at the same time it
motivated me to see how many people are supporting this,” he said.



Valle said his main concern is losing his landscaping job — his family’s main
income.

“I don’t thing we are doing anything wrong,” he said. “We only look to progress
and support our families.”

READ MORE: Civil-rights group issues Florida travel alert in response to
DeSantis immigration crackdown

Jeremy T. Redfern, press secretary for Gov. Desantis’ office, told the Herald in
an email Thursday that the law “counteracts the effects of illegal immigration
on Florida, a problem willfully enabled by the Biden Administration’s refusal to
secure our nation’s southern border.”



“The media has been deliberately inaccurate about this distinction between legal
and illegal immigration to create this very sort of outrage based on a false
premise,” he said. “Any business that exploits this crisis by employing illegal
aliens instead of Floridians will be held accountable.”


Homestead, Florida - June 1, 2023 - Signs supporting the strike on the front
door of a closed business in Florida City, Florida. The one day walk out was
organized to protest new immigration law SB 1718. Among its provisions, the
strict new state law limits social services for undocumented immigrants,
allocates millions more tax dollars to expand DeSantis’ migrant relocation
program, invalidates driver’s licenses issued to undocumented people by other
states, and requires hospitals that get Medicaid dollars to ask for a patient’s
immigration status. Jose A. Iglesias jiglesias@elnuevoherald.com

A few minutes away from the mall, Elsira Morales, 28, stayed home to call state
elected officials to demand they repeal or make major changes to the immigration
law. The mother of two carried her 4-month-old baby and her 2-year-old daughter
in her lap during calls.

“I vote, and things like this won’t [keep] her in office,” Morales told an
assistant of Republican state Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez, who represents parts of
Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.



“He is breaking up families and creating fear in our communities,” she said in a
voicemail left for Republican state Rep. Juan Carlos Porras.

Born and raised in the Homestead area, Morales, the daughter of Guatemalan
immigrant parents, told the Herald the law may affect her even though she is a
U.S. citizen because, she says, the law may encourage police to stop drivers
based on the color of their skin.

“If you look Mexican, they [police] are going to have the green light to stop
you,” she said.

Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau chief Mary Ellen Klas contributed to this
report.



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