Norris McDonald | Florida’s farm labour and Ron DeSantis’ pitiless immigration plan

“Talking ‘bout my freedom

People freedom, freedom, and liberty!

Yeah, we’ve been treading on the winepress

Much too long, Rebel, rebel! […] Rebel, rebel

Babylon system is the vampire, falling empire

Suckin’ the children day by day, yeah!”

Bob Marley – Babylon System

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis is not satisfied with picking a fight with Mickey Mouse. His losing ‘Mikey Mouse’ battle with Walt Disney has caused Florida to lose billions of dollars of new investment and jobs.

Still fuming from this ‘rattish’ Mickey Mouse battle, Mr DeSantis and his Florida’s House and Senate have turned their attention to imposing harsh – even criminal – punishment against immigrants and any undocumented family members.

Senate Bill 1718 is the new harsh anti-immigrant law passed by Florida’s House and Senate and signed by Governor DeSantis.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), this legislation unfairly targets the immigrant population.

“A person may be subject to a second-degree felony, punishing by up to 15 years in prison, for travelling across state lines with an undocumented person,” the ACLU says.

It’s the opinion of the ACLU that DeSantis’ harsh immigrant law, and its criminal penalties, “seeks to instill fear in Floridian immigrants seeking to access health care”.

This is done by demanding that healthcare workers, in Florida’s 300 hospitals, check the immigration status of persons seeking healthcare.

Under previous public policies in America there were no requirements to check a person’s immigration status. Clearly this is political scapegoating to enhance DeSantis’ presidential ambition.

Caribbean families who reside in Florida will no doubt be affected by Mr DeSantis’ immigration crackdown.

About 4.5 million Caribbean immigrants are in America. This represents 10 per cent of America’s 44.9 million total foreign-born population.

FLORIDA’S FARM LABOUR

Business firms and the immigrant community have been mobilising to protest these ruthless measures.

This targeting of the immigrant population, including legal residents who may have undocumented family members, can create labour shortages, so analysts say.

Agricultural food prices are rising in Florida now and, apart from anything else, it may be because of this shortage of farm labour, many of whom are undocumented workers.

Florida has long been a state in which the immigrant population has been subjected to racial profiling, discrimination, and wage theft, especially in agricultural labour.

A March 2023 report by Maximillian Alvarez, entitled ‘Marching Against Slave Labor’, detailed the working conditions on Florida’s farms.

This includes:

• Imposing debt slavery on workers.

• Confiscating their passports.

• Subjecting them to crowded, unsanitary and degrading living conditions.

• Encouraging them to overstay their visa and then take advantage of them.

• Threatening them with arrest and deportation [if they do not agree to the demands].

Wage slavery and the unfair treatment of farm workers have been found to be a common problem in Florida. And yet neither Governor Ron DeSantis nor his anti-immigrant Republican legislators see it fit to address this terrible immigrant’s plight.

It’s a common problem facing the immigrant population. And even immigrant workers with the required work permit – H-2A Visa for Temporary Agricultural Worker – still face wage theft, racial profiling, and discrimination.

A 2022 investigation by the US Department of Labor – according to a government February 17, 2022 report – alleged that a Texas farm operator, “Blane Larsen farms Inc, failed to pay workers with H-2A visas, in addition to workers from the US, all the wages they are legally due.”

Agricultural workers generally do not have much legal protection, and too often they are exploited.

We can see, therefore, my friends, that agricultural workers in Mr DeSantis’ Florida have many terrible plights, conveniently ignored by the Republicans.

The federal government, therefore, had to step in and tackle farm labour racketeering and – on the face of the evidence – wage theft.

Bladimir Moreno is an accused forced labour racketeer, who was caught and pleaded guilty before a Tampa, Florida Court.

He was sentenced to 118 months in prison “for leading a federal racketeering and forced labor conspiracy”, the US Justice Department reports.

NURSES’ WORKING CONDITIONS

Working conditions are very deplorable on Florida’s farms, in some business enterprise, and quite surprisingly, even in hospitals.

Florida, Georgia and Texas consistently rank the lowest in America terms of the delivery of healthcare, a recent report said. And this has been so for well over the last 10 years.

In the hospital system, nurses, and allied healthcare workers, are sometimes forced by employers to work long hours. This can significantly harm their health by increasing their burn-out rate.

Even before, during the COVID-19 pandemic and now, these widespread, deplorable conditions include workers being asked to work without the necessary protective equipment, such as masks and gloves.

Florida-based HCA Hospitals and Tenet Health was the subject of widespread, press-reported complaints, which included a 2020 White House protest organised by the National Nurses United union.

Instead of picking on immigrants, why doesn’t Governor DeSantis improve the health conditions of Floridians?

Why doesn’t Governor DeSantis focus on lifting Florida from the low national rank in healthcare delivery?

Would you agree with me, dear friends, that these are burning issues Mr DeSantis ought to address?

What do you think?

Even in times of war, nurses, doctors, and healthcare workers are required by their moral code to deliver care to even a wounded enemy.

Do no harm!

Picking on nurses to demand that they become his immigration deputies would be like, in my opinion, Governor DeSantis’ small-minded, petty action of his thoughtless fight with Mickey Mouse.

This, in my opinion, is a truly shameful, heartless policy!

Healthcare workers, therefore, ought not to be DeSantis’ immigration police.

They must, therefore, join with the community to organise, mobilise, and take effective action to oppose DeSantis’ heartless immigration law.

That is just ‘the bitta truth’!

Norris McDonald is a respiratory therapist, social researcher, and political analyst. Email feedback columns@gleanerjm.com and miaminorris@yahoo.com