Joe.My.God. LGBT News
Vox reports:
The videos from Florida aren’t hard to find: Dozens of clips of empty fields, abandoned construction sites, and scores of truck drivers calling for boycotts of the state have racked up hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok and Twitter over the last month. The common thread? Fear and frustration over the state’s newest anti-immigrant law, signed a week ago by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The law was already causing panic across Florida before DeSantis signed it. In South Florida, reporters with a local CBS News affiliate tracked empty construction sites across Miami-Dade County and spoke with construction workers who said that many of their coworkers were not showing up to work because they feared deportation. An NBC affiliate interviewed farmworkers in South Florida considering moves out of the state.
Tampa’s NBC affiliate reports:
Truck drivers have called for boycotts against Florida’s new penalties and restrictions on undocumented immigrants in the state that require employers to verify if workers are authorized to work in the U.S. Across social media platforms, Latino truck drivers are now threatening to stop delivering to and from Florida.
Drivers posted videos on TikTok with messages like “don’t enter Florida,” and encouraging others to follow their lead, which has led to a thread of truck drivers saying they were not driving through the state. Florida’s new law, which was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 10, will take effect on July 1.
The Palm Beach Post reports:
If you’re looking for a job in Florida, you might want to consider some red-hot new career opportunities picking vegetables, tarring roofs or cleaning hotel toilets. Thanks to the imperatives of campaign messaging, Florida is about to make life harder for the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants working in the state.
But it’s best to think of it as great news for those of you who have felt stung by being unfairly left out of those pre-dawn bus rides to the crops, summer afternoons on the construction site and late nights in filthy office bathrooms. You have an opportunity now to reclaim these “stolen” jobs.
Remezcla reports:
According to the Migration Policy Institute, 772,000 undocumented immigrants live in Florida. It is unknown yet how many undocumented workers will leave the state because of SB1718, but there are plenty of videos online that are showing how immigrants are reacting, including empty work sites and fields that will go to ruin because there are no workers.
“I am leaving Florida. I have to do it for the sake of my children,” Dolores Lucas told the CBS affiliate in Miami. “I cannot afford to put my kids at risk, I don’t know where I will go but I will leave Florida.” Lucas has five children. Only one of them was born in the U.S. The others were born in her home country of Guatemala.
@flowerinspanish Acres and acres, tons and tons, of rotting food in Florida fields. FARM WORKERS ARE NO LONGER SHOWING UP TO WORK. LET’S STAND IN SOLIDARITY AND BOYCOTT FLORIDA, BOYCOTT FLORIDA’S ORANGE JUICES AND PRODUCE!! #Florida #boycottflorida #floridastate #farmworkers ♬ Immigrants (We Get The Job Done) – K’naan & Snow Tha Product & Riz MC & Residente