In late August Hurricane Idalia, the strongest tropical storm to hit northern Florida since 1896, killed four people and caused up to $20 billion in damage. In September, thanks to Governor Ron DeSantis’ anti-immigrant law that has been called “draconian,” clean-up and rebuilding has been hard. Migrant workers have been fleeing north, to Georgia and other states, terrified of being arrested.
Nationwide, Republicans have been attacking President Joe Biden for what they call the “border crisis,” an influx of undocumented immigrants that not only started before the Biden administration, but was worsened by President Donald Trump according to former top national security, border security, and customs officials. House and Senate Republicans are now demanding any funds to help Ukraine and Israel be tied to funds to “fix” the border.
At the state level, Republicans including Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, have been shipping undocumented immigrants out of their states to points north, to spots like New York City, Philadelphia, Massachusetts’s Martha’s Vineyard, and even the official residence of the Vice President, the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
Last year on Christmas Eve, in 18 degree weather, “busloads of migrants were dropped off in front of Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington, DC,” according to CNN. Many were “asylum seekers from Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru and Colombia,” not used to sub-freezing temperatures. Some were dressed only in tee shirts.
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“Governor Abbott abandoned children on the side of the road in below freezing temperatures on Christmas Eve without coordinating with any Federal or local authorities,” the White House said in a statement.
There are no accurate figures for how many migrants have been shipped from Republican-run states like Texas and Florida, but they number at least in the tens of thousands. In October, Axios reported Gov. Abbott had shipped over 50,000 migrants to points north, including Chicago, NYC, L.A., D.C., and Philadelphia – all run by Democrats. Gov. DeSantis has a $12 million budget to send migrants out of his state, and is believed to have spent $615,000 to fly about 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. He “has vowed to use ‘every penny’ of the $12 million allocated to his administration for migrant transports,” CNN reported.
And now, as unemployment under President Biden continues to remain extremely low – below 4% for nearly a full two years – “the longest such streak since the late 1960s,” and as the COVID-related inflation has plummeted from 9% one year ago to 3.1%, as gas prices continue to drop, media outlets and think tanks are pivoting to reporting on the worker, staffing, and labor shortage.
“We hear every day from our member companies—of every size and industry, across nearly every state—they’re facing unprecedented challenges trying to find enough workers to fill open jobs,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported late last month. “Right now, the latest data shows that we have 9.5 million job openings in the U.S., but only 6.5 million unemployed workers.”
The labor shortage is caused in part by a long-term declining U.S. birth rate and decline in immigrants allowed to work in the U.S. Experts say without immigration, the U.S. population will start to decline.
“The U.S. labor force will shrink, and America risks stagnation and declining living standards without immigrants, according to new research,” Forbes reported in August. “Immigrants can boost the U.S. working-age population and offset America’s falling birthrate and the retirement of Baby Boomers. U.S. elected officials must decide whether to change immigration laws and policies to bolster America’s labor force and prevent decline.”
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As a result, Republicans across the country have been working to reduce or remove child labor protections to help fill the lack of able-bodied workers.
“While federal agencies are ramping up enforcement of child labor protections in response to increasing violations, industry groups are working to roll back child labor protections via state legislation,” the Economic Policy Institute reported in May. “Already in 2023, seven bills to weaken child labor protections have been introduced in six Midwestern states (Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and South Dakota) and in Arkansas, where a bill repealing restrictions on work for 14- and 15-year-olds has now been signed into law. One bill introduced in Minnesota would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work on construction sites. Ten states have introduced, considered, or passed legislation rolling back protections for young workers in just the past two years.”
And now, Florida.
Contributing to Florida’s labor shortage are Governor DeSantis’ policies during the COVID pandemic. Florida had the 18th-highest per capita COVID death rate in the U.S. 92,520 people reportedly died, ranking the state third in total COVID deaths.
But also, DeSantis’ immigration laws are scaring workers into fleeing the state.
Now, one Florida Republican lawmaker sees a solution: children. And she has a bill to put them to work more.
“The Republican-backed bill, fed to Rep. Linda Chaney by the right-wing Foundation for Government Accountability — a think tank that wrote the bill — would gut the state’s current restrictions on child labor for older teens, which were originally established to prevent work from interfering with a child’s health, safety and education,” Orlando Weekly reports. “Backed by industry groups representing restaurant and hotel owners, the proposed bill would get rid of state guidelines on when 16- and 17-year-olds can work and would limit local governments’ ability to enact stronger regulations in their communities. The bill, for instance, would make it legal for employers to put older teens to work on overnight shifts, even if they have school the next day.”
State Rep. Linda Chaney on Wednesday explained her legislation to weaken Florida’s child labor protections.
“This bill is not about children,” the Republican lawmaker told her colleagues. “This bill is about 16- and 17-year-olds. These are youth workers that are driving automobiles. They are not children.”
Rep. Chaney went on to explain that under her bill, a child could legally work the overnight shift, perhaps midnight to 6 AM, at a gas station or 7-Eleven, for example, on a school night, and could do so without parental consent.
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She said, “it is up to the individual and their parent how they choose to work and again, there’s no mandate in this bill of when or where they work, they may choose to work 35 hours. There is also school choice,” she said, of Florida’s massive school voucher program. “There’s a lot of differences of children in youth schedules now. So they may not be going to school during typical school hours. So for them to choose, they have the right now to choose what best fits their individual situation.”
When asked if the child has to “get parental consent to take that job if they’re 16 or 17?” Chaney answered, “No.”
Chaney “said she filed the legislation in part to provide more labor for Florida’s tourism industry,” Florida-based reporter Jason Garcia wrote at Seeking Rents. “Being in a tourist area of Florida and knowing the needs of the hospitality industry…I felt this was a common-sense bill.”
Watch the videos of Chaney’s remarks above or at this link.