The Florida State Senate’s leading Republican is refusing to support Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) effort to implement mandatory E-Verify to ban employers from hiring illegal aliens over Americans and legal immigrants.
Last month, DeSantis rolled out his statewide initiative to pass mandatory E-Verify in Florida — putting the state in line with neighboring states like Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. Mandatory E-Verify is supported by more than 7-in-10 Floridians, including 63 percent of Democrats and 81 percent of Republicans.
“We need to stand for workers here in Florida first, and that’s I think what E-Verify will do,” DeSantis said in the press conference with Angel Families who have lost loved ones to illegal aliens. Oftentimes, those illegal aliens are incentivized to stay in a state like Florida because there is no requirement for businesses to check their legal status.
Despite its popularity with Florida voters, Florida Senate President Bill Galvano said last week that he does not support DeSantis’s mandatory E-Verify measure, according to the Tampa Bay Times:
“It is something that the Florida Senate — or at least this administration — does not endorse,” Galvano told The News Service of Florida during an interview Thursday. [Emphasis added]
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But, although Galvano said he opposes an across-the-board E-Verify requirement, he left the door open for a slimmed down immigration proposal. [Emphasis added]
“Let me put it this way,” Galvano said. “I don’t support having the requirement that everyone (use) E-Verify. It’s putting an additional responsibility on non-government officials.” [Emphasis added]
Rather than Florida’s workers, Galvano is siding with the state’s donor class and big business lobby that have attempted to thwart all efforts to ban state businesses from hiring illegal aliens, thus driving up U.S. wages and decreasing foreign competition against Americans.