‘I don’t want my kids to live in fear’: Families leave Florida after new immigration law

Alejandra worked in a grocery store from 10 am to 7 pm. You have finally found a nanny who will pick up the boys from school in the afternoon and take care of them until you can go home.

Like Alejandra, most of the store’s employees are illegal immigrants.

“They’re slamming the door on me and my kids,” she says, as she packs up the last of her belongings for the boys to take to New York.

There, Alejandra’s brother will host them until she finds a new job.

Unlike their mother, the boys already speak English. Dominic enrolled in a special advanced math, science and computer program at the school. His dream is to study economics at Harvard University (USA).

“I feel neglected,” says Alejandra, as she unpacks the plush Simba doll (from The Lion King), one of the few toys that will be traveling with the family to New York. “All I want is for my children to have the opportunity to study and become professionals.”

New York is a “sanctuary state,” as the places where Democratic rulers have passed laws to protect the rights of undocumented people are called.

Republican governors, like DeSantis, have been sending immigrants who arrive in their jurisdictions by bus or plane to safe haven states after crossing the southern border.

Alejandra and her children entered the country through the border with Mexico. Now they are asking for asylum.

DeSantis declared SB 1718 “the nation’s strongest piece of legislation against illegal immigration.”

The rule requires companies with 25 or more employees to use a system to check worker immigration status (called E-Verify). It imposes daily fines of US$1,000 (about R$4,800) on companies if they employ illegal immigrants and threatens entrepreneurs with suspending their operating permits in case of repeated occurrences.

The law also prohibits local authorities in Florida from issuing identification documents to aliens who are in the United States illegally and revokes identification cards issued in similar status by other states.

Hospitals are also obligated to collect patient immigration data and submit it to the authorities, in order to calculate the costs of medical assistance provided to undocumented persons. The law also makes it a crime to transport undocumented people to Florida, even in their own vehicles.

The Immigration Policy Institute, based in the US capital, Washington, D.C., estimates that 772,000 undocumented people live in Florida.

Tadeo is 12 years old and wears a diaper. He doesn’t speak, but he’s taking phonology and psychosocial treatments at West Palm Beach School, according to his father, Michael Perez.

When the doctors told him that Tadeo had severe autism, his parents visited the schools in the city where they live – Canelones, in southern Uruguay. But the better alternative they offered is to put Tadeo in a corner and have him play with blocks of geometric shapes.

Perez and his wife decided to emigrate to the United States, hoping to find centers specializing in autism. They arrived in the country in 2017, by plane, on tourist visas. The intention was to legalize themselves as immigrants as soon as possible.

But Uruguayan citizenship and family profile did not appear to fit any visa that would pave the way for his permanent residence in Florida. They left and returned to the United States twice, but were unable to find a legal mechanism that would allow them to stay.

Now, with the new Florida law, Perez and his wife have decided to leave the United States permanently.

“I will not allow my children to live in the shadows, to be excluded because they have no papers,” he says. Piriz works on a farm cleaning horse stables.

Carlos is Mexican and he is 53 years old. He has not yet made a decision about leaving Florida.

He works as a tortilla delivery man for restaurants and supermarkets. The owner of the company promised to do everything he could to keep Carlos’ job, but his driver’s license has expired for two years and now he can’t renew it while he’s without documents.

“I rooted in Florida 13 years ago,” he says, during a break in his daily commute delivering cornflakes. “It’s so hard to suddenly get up and live a new life somewhere else, from one moment to the next.”

Every week Carlos sends US$100 to US$200 (about R$480 to US$960) to his three children in the city of Colima – the capital of the state of the same name, west of Mexico City.

Carlos says he would consider leaving Florida if there was a witch hunt against the undocumented.

“I need to know if, from now on, the police are going to stop people in the street at random, if they are going to chase us because of the color of our skin,” he says. “If persecution begins, I will leave. I am not willing to lose my peace over this law.”

The owners of the companies where Carlos delivers products comment that in recent weeks the consumption and sale of cornflakes has decreased – many of their customers have already left Florida.