News
By JIM SAUNDERS | News Service of Florida, Orlando Sentinel
11-27-23
TALLAHASSEE — A statewide grand jury is calling for steps to curb illegal immigration, saying “it will be up to Florida and other states to help themselves, at least in the short term,” as problems go unsolved at the federal level.
Its report, posted Monday on the Florida Supreme Court website, urges further attempts to crack down on businesses that hire undocumented immigrants, probing non-government organizations and collecting fees on transfers of money from Florida to other countries.
“We learned that, if anything, many Floridians are (just as we were before undertaking this inquiry) almost dangerously naive and unaware of the true magnitude and malevolence of the illegal immigration industry,” the report says. “What we discovered has been at varying times sobering, upsetting, depressing, and the cause of significant outrage.”
The grand jury, impaneled last year at the request of Gov. Ron DeSantis, delves into a wide range of issues, such as efforts to prevent employers from hiring undocumented immigrants. DeSantis has made immigration a key issue of his campaign for president.
DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature this spring approved a bill (SB 1718) that included requiring businesses with 25 or more employees to use the federal E-Verify system to check the immigration status of workers. The grand jury called for eliminating the exemption for businesses with fewer than 25 employees, saying it “provides too many incentives for the unscrupulous to ‘game the system.’”
Read the full article here: Florida grand jury calls for states to crack down on illegal immigration – Orlando Sentinel