TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) - The state legislature is now at the halfway point in the 2025 legislative session and as the end swiftly approaches, lawmakers in Tallahassee are pushing for more immigration reform.
Before the legislative session began, lawmakers met for three special sessions on immigration.
A key debate in those sessions was whether or not the state needed to strengthen the process to verify workers' citizenship through the federal system E-Verify. Now, that conversation continues.
Governor Ron DeSantis, Republicans, and even some Democrats in the statehouse have all pushed for tougher worker citizenship eligibility requirements.
Several bills have been filed on the issue, including from Senators Jason Pizzo (D-Sunny Isles Beach), Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill), and Representative Berny Jacques (R-Seminole).
This week, for the first time, one of them started to move.
Berny Jacques' House bill to require all private employers to use E-Verify passed out of its first committee stop. But before receiving majority support, lawmakers and members of the public shared concerns with the legislation, saying it puts unnecessary red tape up for small businesses.
"I'm looking at specifically in my district on both sides of the Bay, small businesses who may not have knowledge of that, who may not get this. How are we going to not be punished?" said Representative Michele Rayner, (D- St. Petersburg). "Would you be open to a grace period of education? How do we make sure that people who would probably want to do the right thing aren't going to necessarily be penalized for maybe just not knowing the law?"
The bill would allow for a 30-day non-compliance window if the employer fails to use the E-Verify system. If businesses continue to not comply - fines will start to stack up.
"I just think there's a better way of doing this. I think to Rep Rayner's point, if we could postpone this and do more education on the front end so that folks don't have to face these massive fines and fees just because they don't know," said Angela Nixon (D- Jacksonville). "$1000 a day, $1000 can put a business under, a small business under."
While Democrats say there is a better way of doing this, Republicans argue these requirements are needed to ensure that Florida jobs go to American workers not to those who violate immigration labor laws.
"They can go and be a green card holder. They can have a work visa, they can be here in some sort of status. So, it's not just because you're an immigrant, you're not allowed to work. This is about the unauthorized aliens, those that don't meet any of these statuses that I just talked about, operating and lurking here in our state, it is an issue," said Rep. Jacques. "It is an issue because if one of these individuals slip through the cracks and commits either a crime or an accident, and harms one of our own. That is an issue because it is a preventable death. It is a preventable accident if we had just simply enforced our laws."