DeSantis reveals plan to replace undocumented migrant workers

A bill that would address working hours for teens in Florida, while affecting the illegal migrants in the Sunshine State, has gotten attention from Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when, you know, teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be able to do this stuff?” the governor said at an event at the New College of Florida.

The proposed bill moving through the state Legislature is sponsored by Republican state Sen. Jay Collins. If passed, it would allow overnight hours for 16- and 17-year-olds as well as permitting them to work more than eight hours before a school day. Those hours would be permissible for some 14- and 15-year-olds as well.

“Parents know their kids best,” Collins said Tuesday at a Commerce and Tourism Committee meeting. “I can promise you that, even though I was challenged, my mom would have smacked me with a flip-flop if my academic grades had suffered. That’s very much the same thing in most families.”

The committee approved Senate Bill 918 on a 5-4 vote but it will need the approval of two more committees before it can head to the Senate.

“I think this sends a bad message,” said Republican Sen. Joe Gruters, who voted with three Democrats against the bill. “I think we need to let kids be kids, I think the guardrails that we’re removing, even though it may be a part of federal law, not in favor of it.”

The idea to expand working hours for teens comes as the governor has been working on aiding federal government efforts to find and deport migrants in the U.S. illegally.

“What’s wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? I mean, that’s how it used to be when I was growing up,” DeSantis said at the roundtable discussion last week that included border czar Tom Homan.

DeSantis was “saying the quiet part out loud,” Democrat Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith said during comments on voting for S.B. 918, adding, “the quiet part being that we’re somehow going to solve the current labor shortage that we have in Florida, that was worsened with anti-immigrant rhetoric, with child labor.”

The governor addressed his collaboration efforts with the federal government on immigration enforcement.

“I think they’re this close to approving and letting us go out and do even more than we’ve already done over the first two months of the Trump administration,” DeSantis said. “So we’re looking forward to that, love to be able to announce something soon.”

Senior Staff Writer
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.

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