At Kissimmee info session, immigrants warned to stay home when DeSantis’ immigration law takes effect

In an effort to suppress their worst fear of being snatched off the street and detained for deportation, a crowd of immigrants gathered virtually and at the Buenaventura Lakes Library in Kissimmee to seek information about how to live in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new Florida.

In just under one month, DeSantis’ law that penalizes immigrants who carry identification from other states, criminalizes transporting undocumented migrants across state lines and cracks down on employers who fail to use the E-Verify system, among other provisions, will take effect.

One of the immigrants sitting in the Buenaventura Lakes Library for the presentation was 63-year-old Esmeralda Bentura, who is from the Dominican Republic and has lived legally in Kissimmee for over 30 years.

“I want to become a citizen now because I now have the desire for it,” Bentura said in Spanish. “My kids have grown up here and everything so now I’m in the process. It also makes coming in and out of the country easier.”

Bentura said the new state law makes her worried for her fellow immigrants.

“It worries me for the other immigrants who are very scared and they’re going to be scared of leaving their home,” she said.

The law prompted immigration lawyers to tell immigrants at a legal orientation program last week to stay at home unless absolutely necessary while the law takes effect and some time passes.

Bentura sought advice to secure her citizen status quickly but others at the Hello Project meeting were wondering how to get to their immigration appointments and avoid being detained. Some wanted to know whether they were allowed to drive themselves using their driver’s licenses after the new law takes effect.

In an attempt to combat some of their fears, the Orlando Center for Justice created the Hello Project in February, which meets monthly on the first Thursday at the Buenaventura Lakes Library in Osceola County and at other locations in Orlando. Now, the presentation includes a section explaining DeSantis’ new immigration bill.

The crowd of immigrants attending from all over Central Florida via Zoom on Thursday stayed silent as they were told that, due to federal laws, they could not be deported if they were going through the legalization process correctly but confirmed their fear that, because of the new state law, they could be detained.

Melissa Marantes is the co-founder and director of the Orlando Center for Justice, a nonprofit that provides legal services to underrepresented groups who cannot afford a lawyer.

“Use buses, public transportation or a family member who is already a legal resident to drive you to appointments,” Marantes said in Spanish to immigrants at the Hello Project meeting. “This is for those that have an irregular status because, what happens, there is no clear definition under the law … if it will target the undocumented person who’s been here for a million years or someone still in the process.”

Advocates believe immigrants and Puerto Ricans in Osceola County and Central Florida are at risk after DeSantis’ new immigration law takes effect on July 1.

In May, DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1718 into law. The law requires companies in the state with 25 or more employees use E-Verify, a federal system that determines the eligibility of employees to work in the U.S.; creates penalties for those employing or smuggling undocumented immigrants and prohibits local governments from issuing identification cards to them; invalidates ID cards issued to undocumented immigrants in other states; and requires hospitals to collect and submit data on the costs of providing health care to undocumented immigrants.

Advocates say the law will foster discrimination against Hispanics, including those who are legally in Florida like Puerto Ricans, the large majority of whom live in Osceola County.

With a backlog of immigration cases in the state since COVID-19 delayed many appointments and the recent ending of Title 42, the COVID-era federal immigration policy that allowed authorities to swiftly turn away migrants at the U.S. border, Florida’s new immigration bill adds confusion.

In the first quarter of 2023, the U.S. immigration court already had over 1.8 million pending cases since the end of the fiscal year, according to data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review. Nearly 200,000 initial cases were just filed in the first quarter of the year and another more than100,000 cases were completed this year so far, according to the data.

Marantes said she hears daily from immigrants with questions about the immigration process but has seen an increase in calls after DeSantis signed the legislation, with most saying they are fearful of what’s going to happen.

Immigrants who are in the process of becoming legal residents are worried the new law might impact their ability to get legal status, she said. She often has to remind immigrants going through the process that they are legally allowed to be in the country while attending appointments and working toward their legal residency, Marantes said.

“It’s going to affect those that maybe have licenses from somewhere else and unfortunately what we’re already seeing is that there are police officers already trying to enforce what isn’t law yet,” Marantes said. “So it starts in July but we’ve already heard concerns of people getting stopped, being asked about their immigration status.”

Marantes also is worried about how police will enforce the law because of the vagueness of its language.

“If an individual is awaiting their case, we’re just not sure how it’s going to roll out,” Marantes said. “My heart goes out to … even the police force because it’s going to be hard to know how they would interpret, try to enforce, because it’s very vague.”

The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office in an emailed statement said, after DeSantis’ immigration bill takes effect, it will not be changing how it trains officers.

The Kissimmee Police Department is reviewing the language of the immigration policy and Chief Betty Holland is working with the city’s legal team to see what changes, if any, will be applicable, spokesperson Stephanie Bechara said in an email.

After Title 42 ended, Title 8 is now being enforced, which allows for a swift deportation process; the ban on migrants to enter the U.S. for five years or more; longer processing time; and criminal prosecution for those who seek reentry on multiple occasions. The process makes it more difficult for migrants to seek asylum and takes longer.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the agency that finds and deports illegal immigrants and often works with local law enforcement.

In Osceola, the county corrections center detains these individuals until ICE picks them up to take them to the Miami ICE detention center. ICE has 48 hours to pick up these individuals and in 2022 they picked up 28 detainees, said Hope Martinez, Osceola County Corrections spokesperson in an email. As of May 25, ICE has picked up 41 detainees from Osceola County Corrections this year.

Marantes said immigrants already have many hurdles when trying to get their legal status from federal laws and adding this state law into the mix spells more confusion and fear.

“For example, you need a passport to get a driver’s license in Florida and as an immigrant awaiting certain processes,” Marantes said. “But if you can’t get your passport then you can’t get the driver’s license so you have everything lined up and every ability to get it but you can’t get it because of this one hurdle.”

Making it even harder is the fact that many immigrants are fleeing a home country in fear and asking for a passport from their home country exposes immigrants to their government knowing where they are, Marantes said.

The new state immigration bill could spell trouble for legal citizens like Puerto Ricans, said Elizabeth Aranda, University of South Florida professor of Sociology and director of the Immigrant Well-Being Research Center.

Aranda has researched Puerto Ricans in Florida for many years and found across multiple studies they are often assumed to be foreign, not U.S. citizens, targeted for speaking Spanish and often steered to lower-wage service jobs. She said the new state immigration law could lead to more discrimination against Puerto Ricans, who often grapple with leaving Florida due to difficulty transitioning.

Aranda said if officers are shown a Puerto Rican driver’s license they may not recognize them as citizens. And if the driver has a darker complexion or an accent, police may presume the driver is undocumented. Aranda said DeSantis’ law requires law enforcement to implement racial profiling to implement the law.

“As immigrant enforcement ramps up, anyone who is Latino becomes suspect,” Aranda said. “Unfortunately that’s what happens when you have laws that rely on racial profiling.”

It is estimated that 34% of Osceola’s population identifies as having Puerto Rican origin.

In Osceola County, there are over 37,000 residents who work in leisure, hospitality, accommodation and food services, according to data from the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies.

“We rely on immigrant labor for a lot of things and if people feel like they’re not safe to go to work, if they feel like they can’t get medical care and if they feel like their loved ones are in jeopardy, they’re going to leave,” Aranda said. “Which I guess is maybe one of purposes of the law is to have folks leave, but you know, I don’t know that they fully thought of what it would be like to have an economy without immigrants working in it.”

U.S. Rep Darren Soto, who represents Osceola County, said DeSantis’ immigration law is going to hurt tourism and have a chilling effect.

“I do small business tours across the district and the biggest thing I hear now from small businesses is a lack of a labor force,” Soto said. “Many folks have been hiring recently arrived immigrants to help pick up the slack so it’s definitely going to hurt us.”

The new Family Reunification Parole Processes that the Department of Homeland Security announced in April allows vetted individuals with already approved family-based petitions to be released into the United States, on a case-by-case basis, from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Colombia, Cuba and Haiti. Soto said this parole process combats DeSantis’ new immigration regulations.

“That’s been a very successful program in Central Florida to reunite families,” Soto said. “But overall it’s going to put a chilling effect on tourism, agriculture and potentially construction as well, which could exacerbate our affordable housing issues with slower construction and potentially raise fruit and vegetable prices.”

Another aspect of the law’s potential chilling effect is the unclear language on IDs.

The new law doesn’t recognize IDs from other states granted to illegal immigrants, but the language is unclear on whether immigrants awaiting the finalization of their legal status who are able to get their driver’s license in other states will be scrutinized after July 1 in Florida.

Marantes said the law might have a chilling effect on those people wanting to visit Disney or other tourism spots in Florida.

“We’re the community of Disney and high tourism and I worry for our tourism industry if people start getting stopped in error,” she said. “What would that look like or what that kind of attention might that bring?”

Many questions remain unanswered about driving with relatives without an ID, driving undocumented relatives to their immigration appointments, or Puerto Rican driver’s licenses. Marantes said she often gets Puerto Ricans calling her office who struggle to get their birth certificates from the island to get their driver’s licenses.

“So it’s not so much an immigrant issue only; we’re seeing that it’s an everybody issue,” Marantes said.