- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Coming up next, the topic of immigration has emerged as a top concern for voters nationwide.

How does the influx of immigrants at the US southern border affect Floridians?

Is it a crisis for us in the Sunshine State, and what do you think of Florida's response to the immigrants by sending state employees to the Texas border?

The immigration controversy next on "Florida This Week."

(dramatic music) Welcome back.

Immigration has become one of the most important issues to voters in this election year.

In December, the US Border Patrol says it had nearly 250,000 encounters with migrants crossing into the US from Mexico.

That was the highest monthly total on record.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 28% of Americans named immigration as the most important problem now facing the US.

The survey says immigration is more important than the way government runs, the economy, inflation or poverty and homelessness.

Former President Trump brought up the issue the night he won the South Carolina primary.

- You look outside and you see all of the horror.

You see millions and millions of people coming across the border illegally.

We don't know where they come from.

They come from jails, they come from prisons, they come from all sorts of places that we don't want to know.

They come from mental institutions and insane asylums, and we don't want that in our country.

- [Rob] Where do the immigrants come from?

In fiscal 2023, it was mostly central, South American and Caribbean countries, including Mexico, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, Columbia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Haiti and Peru.

Along with these countries, there are also growing numbers of Chinese and Indian migrants seeking to escape political and religious oppression.

Florida has long been a haven for political and economic refugees from the Caribbean and Latin America.

Many of those immigrants work in agriculture, construction, and some have even started successful businesses.

But in signing a bill to crack down on undocumented immigration last year, the governor denied that illegal immigrants helped the economy.

- You can't build a strong economy based on illegality.

- [Rob] Democrats warn the laws seeking to make it harder for undocumented people to work in Florida will hurt the economy and will drive the immigrants into the shadows.

Here are State Representative Anna Eskamani and one-time illegal immigrant Thomas Kennedy.

- This is un-American.

It is anti-freedom.

It's not the Florida that I grew up.

- We're really just hardworking people that want to be left alone, that want to protect and support their families.

- [Rob] Even some Florida business owners fear Florida's tough stand against the illegals will hurt their companies.

Tim Conlan is a roofing contractor.

- I am not a fan of open borders, but I am a fan of putting people to work in this community who are contributing to the community.

There's gotta be a way to get them into the system where they get paid a fair wage and they pay their fair taxes and everybody gets back to work.

- [Rob] Fidel Sanchez, who is a strawberry grower in Plant City, says he will keep his workforce under 25 people this year.

If he hired more, he would trigger the state requirement that he must use E-Verify to screen for legal residence.

(Fidel speaking foreign language) - [Interpreter] I don't have more than 25 people, because that's what the law calls for, and I'm following what the law says, but I don't have enough people to work.

There's been instances where people ask if I have work for them, but unfortunately I have to say no.

- In January, the US Chamber of Commerce reported that across the country there were 9.5 million job openings, but only six and a half million unemployed workers.

That's a worker shortage of 3 million people.

Since beginning his campaign to stop illegal entry, Governor DeSantis has sent more than 1,000 Florida Highway Patrol troopers, National Guard, Department of Law Enforcement Agents and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers to the Texas border to try to block illegal immigration.

Joining us now on our panel, Dr. Alayne Unterberger is an anthropologist and immigration researcher.

Barbara Haselden is an insurance broker and the President of the St. Petersburg Republican Club.

CJ Czaia is an attorney and the owner of Czaia Law, and Roberto Torres is a small business owner and is currently not affiliated with a political party.

Nice to have you all on the set.

Thank you for coming.

- Thank you for having us.

- Well, Roberto, let me start with you.

How does the influx of immigrants at the US southern border affect us here in Florida, and is it a crisis for Floridians?

What do you think of the state of Florida's response to the immigrants who are coming through the border in Texas?

- I think that the address that the governor had sending public taxpayer funds to try to bus or send people in airplanes for places like Martha's Vineyard is abhorrent and is cruel and is human trafficking, and it doesn't serve the taxpayers or the state of Florida.

I've talked to a few people in getting ready for today, and from the federal level, Congress have failed us in passing true legislation to allow us the opportunity to fix this problem.

But the problem is that it's advantageous for both political parties that the fact that there is a broken immigration system and a path to documentation and to legal residency and finally to citizenship.

The second one is at the state level.

A quick fix for allows the opportunity for people that are undocumented, they're not illegal, they're undocumented, is to just have a driver's license.

That allows them the opportunity to drive, to get to work, to buy insurance and to pay rent, which is one of the highest rents in the country.

At the local level, the Tampa Bay area, we support and applaud businesses that allow us the opportunity to work, because you don't need to have a social security number to get to work.

You just get an ITIN, and moreover, this idea that immigration equals Latinos, it's false.

It's every single, like you mentioned, a slew of different ethnicities.

I think a lot of ethnicities get jumbled into that or scapegoated.

Latinos, for example, which I happen to be one, opened the fastest number of businesses, independent, mom and pop, under a million dollars, than any other ethnicity at a faster clip with no access to capital or credit or even documents.

- Roberto, thanks.

Barbara, let me ask you the same question, but Roberto's idea too that undocumented immigrants should be given driver's licenses.

I want you to address that, but also how does the influx of immigrants at the US southern border affect us here in Florida?

- Well, I think it's an invasion.

I think it's a total invasion of the country, and that's not an unwelcome statement.

That's just to say this sheer tidal wave of illegal people coming across the border, many of these people are here for nefarious reasons.

Sure, there's plenty of people that are coming for economical opportunity.

I understand that, but we have so many people, thousands and thousands every day, that are coming across the border because we basically don't have a border right now, and this is really alarming so many people in the country because of all the repercussions, and of course even New York, where they're putting them in hotels and paying for the hotels and paying for the food and healthcare, and these people are not vetted for disease.

I heard today that a case of measles just broke out in Pinellas.

Unheard of.

So a lot of these things that are occurring are coming with these people.

But when you look at the, I pulled up US Customs for Florida, and it shows us that two to one, they're coming over single and mostly males and young.

This is a very big concern for people in the United States.

- [CJ] Tell Congress.

- Excuse me.

Who is coming across the border, and what are they coming for?

We know that we're seeing a lot of Chinese of military age coming over alone as men.

So yes, there's a lot of considerations here that is causing this to be the number one concern of people in the country right now, and it's not a Democrat thing, a Republican thing.

It's an American thing.

- What do you think of Roberto's idea that the people who come here without documents should be given driver's licenses?

- Well, that would've made a difference in the story reporting on the gentleman who killed the sheriff in Franklin, driving the vehicle and didn't have a license.

That would've made him at least have a license.

It turned out that the whole crew, which was a contractor for FDOT, they didn't even vet the people.

- E-Verify didn't work in that case.

- Well, I think that 25 is too high, and they're also gaming the system.

Before they have to, I know for years they've been talking about having E-Verify in Florida.

If you look at the map, Florida was singular in not having any form of E-Verify until about, I think it was last session, a year ago.

They started out at 25.

It should be, I believe in Georgia, it's first person.

- Well, this contractor that we showed in Plant City said the way he's gonna get around E-Verify, and he's not trying to get around, but the way he's gonna avoid any sort of oversight.

- Is under 25.

- [Rob] Is to hire fewer than 25 people.

- They're gaming the system.

- All right, so Alayne, let me ask you about what Barbara just said.

I want you to respond to that, but also her comment that some of these people are coming over for nefarious reasons.

What do you make of that?

- I would say that immigration has always had a wide variety of people that come, but the vast majority of people come for great reasons, and what's happening at the border right now is representing four or five different trends that have been building up for many years.

One of them is, as you were saying, lack of congressional action to do what they need to do.

The immigration laws have not changed in many, many years, but the policy interpretations have, and that is where we are getting into lots of problems.

On top of that, there's a difference between someone who comes to a port of entry looking for asylum because they are running in fear of their lives.

Many Venezuelans, political refugees from their country, the UN has classified the Venezuelan situation as the number one human rights concern.

Over 7 million have left, and people have the right.

That's a basic human right under the United Nations.

We are signatory to that.

The United States cannot not take asylum seekers, and they have to get to a point where they can ask for asylum.

At that point, you are undocumented until you go and you ask for asylum in a safe country.

Now, under the Trump administration, that whole scenario was put on its head through policy, not through legislation, saying that you had to stay in a safe third country, which meant remain in Mexico.

And those folks, many of those folks, are stuck there, and they're still stuck there, despite what the Biden administration tried to do, because it was overruled by the Supreme Court.

So back to our situation, we are at a very difficult time for many countries, and those countries are not resolving their issues.

Some of it is destabilization because United States interferes in their own political situations.

- What do you make of Barbara's statement that people are coming here for nefarious reasons, she doesn't trust the Chinese that are coming here?

- Well, there may be a small, I mean, you cannot always read someone's mind, but I would say 99.9% of the immigrants I know are filling in jobs people won't do, agriculture.

Now, Florida, I was going to mention this later, but Florida has, as of 2020, they started bringing in H-2A workers, which are contracted workers to work in agriculture.

So we have become the number one state since 2020, since the pandemic, and now it's 51,000 workers are coming in, which is displacing the workers we have here, thus making them migrate more.

So there may be people coming in for nefarious reasons, but I would say it's a very, very small percentage compared to those who are seeking freedom of religion, just political freedom or any kind of family reunification, because that was, since 1965, that was the law.

We were looking to reunify families, and that was our number one priority.

You've seen ever since about what, 1998?

'98, maybe, ever since maybe 9/11, that the family reunification piece has become more and more weak.

This has become something that has not actually been dealt with, and that's why you have folks, and they don't want to wait until the elections.

That's the other thing.

People know that things could change.

- So CJ, when Barbara used the term "invasion," how did that strike you?

- I get upset.

It's a lot of ignorance in this country, clearly.

People aren't bad, but they're ignorant.

First with the governor, we talk about Florida, he passed this bill and he took $100 million from insurance, and he should be worried about Florida and not worrying about running for the presidency, which he was.

He knew that when they did these 25 days, that if he shut it down to what Barbara would like, it would destroy the agriculture industry in Florida.

So now you can have three, four, five, 10 companies employing 25 people each, and you don't destroy the agriculture in Florida.

They were supposed to stop everybody coming into the border, and it hasn't happened because he knows he can't do that.

Why he did that was because he was running for president of the United States.

He needs to come back to Florida and take care of Florida, our insurance crisis, et cetera, et cetera.

Our economy is booming.

Washington Post this very week came out with an article expressing it's directly because of the immigration to this country.

It's helping Florida.

The problem is we need the legislators in Washington.

Senator Lankfort, a Republican, with other members of the Senate got together, passed a bill, $118 billion.

I know people in Florida waiting for an asylum trial, eight years, 12 years.

They'll probably be deported, but in the meantime, they have children.

They're part of the community.

They're working, they're productive.

This is unconscionable, and it's Congress's responsibility.

Congress should pass this legislation, allow the president to sign it.

It's not the president.

We don't live in a dictatorship.

Quit listening to the BS and push Congress to do it.

If you want to stop this, Barbara, tell your senators and representatives to pass the immigration reform bill.

Not since Reagan in 1986, we haven't had anything done by Congress, and they won't because Republicans are running.

You heard Trump.

Don't pass it.

He needs this to victory, and they should stop doing this, both sides, don't disagree with you, and work on the issues together.

- Barbara, you've been ganged up on here, so I want to give you a chance to respond.

- I totally expected it.

- All right, so this idea though.

- I mean, I just represent the ignorant, and those that are not.

- It is what it is.

- Those that are not.

- Well-versed on the topic.

Is there a danger, though?

I mean, CJ mentioned the Washington Post report.

The headline was the economy is roaring and immigration is the key reason the economy is roaring.

- It's misplacing other workers, too, Blacks, Hispanics, that are already Americans and that are legally in the country that are being displaced.

You can check out Chicago, where the Blacks in Chicago are flocking to join the Republican party because they feel that they're being displaced.

There are plenty of videos online that I've watched.

I spend a lot of time researching things.

I don't just fly off.

I try to make sure that I've looked at my data.

For instance, this is US Customs Florida.

This shows on this line, that black line there is the number of single people that have come over the border that are in Florida, and that line represents the fiscal year, so we're talking about the last four months.

Look at the increase.

- What's the danger of single people come over?

I've seen other statistics.

- The males that are coming over that represent a potential military danger to this country.

- Military?

- Absolutely.

- What do you mean?

- I'm talking about.

- [Rob] Revolution?

- No, I'm talking about the fact that there have actually been videos online of target practice going on out in the desert out in Arizona by some of these people that are coming across.

- What news agency, and where did you get that?

I don't want to go down there, I'm sorry.

- It's a whole separate issue from the familiar, the family issues that you are pointing towards.

I appreciate the family issues of what I'm talking about, that they're coming here, they're bringing their family, they're trying to get a new start in life.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about tagging along in this and possibly taking advantage of it are now the military single males that have come to the border, come in in droves to the border.

It's like 60,000 Chinese that have come across the border.

- Let me get Alayne in.

- One thing just to note, and this is not just Florida, but it's definitely a Floridian experiment.

If you've heard this, please follow up with this.

But it's a total family strategy to send the male first to get established, and this is not new.

This has been since we started the Bracero Program in Mexico in 1942.

It was ended unilaterally by the United States in 1964, but it's a strategy that we created to bring the male over, and then he gets money and then can afford, immigration's expensive.

- But they're not coming for the American dream.

I think you don't understand that.

They want to feed their family.

- That's what I said.

- They're not coming here to be here.

Before, historically, if you look at the data, they come, they work, they go home.

I have a home in Columbia as well.

My wife is Columbian.

For $1,500 a month, you have a maid and you can live very well.

Why would you live here?

For the economic benefit of making the money.

- Another reason why, and I want to bring it back to Florida and not push or shed light in Chicago, is that the reason why there's a lot of Chinese is because those families are now experiencing what we were experiencing in 1950 of economic upward mobility, and they're getting to, literally to what they define as a middle class.

The first thing that those families do is get enough money and send their offspring here, because the laws was to only have one child for a very long time, and the minute that they can afford to send that one child to the United States to come get educated, that's how they do it, because in their own country, they don't get an opportunity to go to college unless it's approved by the Chinese Communist Party or they have an opportunity for upward mobility there.

- Florida benefits from immigration, period.

Miami, the economy, roofing business, doing jobs we won't do.

It's a form of modern slavery by not fixing the problem, because you can have employers have them work, and they're all around here.

- [Roberto] They're human trafficking.

- There've been lawyers, Pulitzer Prize winners.

The first man to die in Iraq, US Marine, was Jose Gutierrez, undocumented originally from Guatemala.

They work amongst us, they live with us.

It's unconscionable, and what they do is by not giving them the right papers, they work ridiculous hours, they work for less money, and when we're done with them, we can kick them out.

- I want to ask you about Florida policy.

The governor spent millions of dollars especially trying to redirect immigrants away from the Texas border, and in some cases he sent them to other states, sanctuary cities, so-called sanctuary cities.

The pressure is on places like Chicago, we talked about that, and New York.

But I'm wondering in terms of Florida, when you send 1,000 law enforcement officers to the Texas border, are we protecting ourselves less by sending law enforcement officers to Florida?

- No.

- You stand to run for president.

- Are we less safe here in Florida because our law enforcement officers are at the Texas border?

- We're creating a crisis at home.

- Yeah, in a sense, and it's expensive.

I mean, look at all of our problems here that we could be funding education.

What Floridians really care about, you talk to any parent, my kid's school, my child's education, afterschool programs.

- I want to hear from Barbara.

- Thank you, because there's 24 states that have sent help to the border because the federal government will not send help to the border.

- [CJ] No, no.

- Excuse me.

There's 24 states that are doing as Florida is doing, which is to send help to the border.

Of course we know about the fight back and forth between the federal government, between the Biden administration and the governor of Texas to stop this invasion.

- Biden's deported more people than Trump did, so stop with that.

It's a political thing.

- Biden immediately reversed Trump's policies on the first day he was in office.

- If you understand politics, which you don't, if you understand politics, you're gonna do what you need to get elected.

It is the policy of the right to do this and promote this.

It's smart politics.

I mean, if I were them, I'd probably do the same thing.

The governor was running for president.

He sends people there.

He actually went up on stage numerous times and he wants to out-Trump Trump on immigration, and he spent taxpayer's money.

- However, he wants to put money to Ukraine as a part of that package.

That's what people are against.

We're tired of spending money, sending money to the Ukrainian border when we need to be sending money to our border.

- [CJ] We're talking about Florida.

- No, he was talking about the southern border.

- I want to ask you about a point that CJ made.

Do you think that Republicans are not coming to an agreement on dealing with immigration reform because they want to use that as a cudgel over Joe Biden as he runs for president?

- Thank you.

I think that there are enough Republicans in the house who are so squishy and so tied in to being basically compromised that they can't get a majority to pass, so the Republicans are voting with the Democrats, and that's what's hurting us.

- [CJ] Then they would pass.

- [Rob] Hold on, hold on.

- No.

- We want immigration, this bill to pass.

- We are seeing, just like we're seeing in Florida.

- Democrats are at fault for the Republicans not voting?

- Voter registration in Florida skyrocket towards the Republican.

- It's actually towards the Independents.

- [Barbara] Excuse me.

- 49% are Independent.

- Democrats had a big lead back in 2020 in the state of Florida, as they did in Pinellas County, and we're seeing that a lot of these policies that are being promoted through the Democrat party are simply losing support, and people are moving over to the Republican party.

- That's why Trump and Republicans have lost every national election for the last four years.

- Roberto, just quickly, what's your take on why it seems that the Republicans are gaining ground here in Florida?

- The speaker serves former President Trump.

It's the job of the speaker to get all the Republicans in Congress to line up so that they can pass bipartisanship legislation, and he failed to do that.

The minute that former President Trump said I want this deal tanked, he tanked it.

- But here in Florida, the moves by Governor DeSantis don't seem to result in rejection of the Republican party.

- It will, it will.

Not yet.

You gotta let time play out, because the effects of what he's done will play out in the elections that come.

- All right, we're out of time.

Thank you all for a great discussion.

Dr. Alayne Unterberger, Barbara Haselden, CJ Czaia, Roberto Torres, thank you for being on our panel and thank you for watching.

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