A proposal that would require small businesses to use the federal E-Verify system to check the immigration status of newly hired workers started moving forward Tuesday in the House.
The Republican-controlled Industries & Professional Activities Subcommittee voted 12-4 along party lines to support the proposal (HB 955), which would expand a requirement that businesses with 25 or more employees use E-Verify to determine if people are eligible to work.
“This is simply enforcing what is federal law,” bill sponsor Rep. Berny Jacques, R-Seminole, said. “Those folks (undocumented immigrants) should not be working in our states to begin with. So, we just want to make sure that no one is slipping through the cracks when it comes to jobs here.”
Democrats questioned the financial effects on the state or on businesses that would have to start using the verification process.
Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, cautioned that Florida’s agriculture, tourism and health care industries depend on foreign workers.
“We are very reliant on immigrant labor and, of course, the state's response, and just quoting our governor, is to replace immigrant labor with children. And I have a problem with that,” Eskamani said.
The House panel also voted 12-6 Tuesday to approve a separate measure (HB 1225) that would expand a 2024 law by doing away with some work restrictions on 16- and 17-year-olds.
The bill would allow those teens to work more than eight hours a day on school nights and over 30 hours a week while school is in session. The measure also would remove labor restrictions for 14- and 15-year-olds who have graduated from high school, are home-schooled or attend virtual school.
The teen labor measure and a similar Senate bill (SB 918) each would need to clear two more panels before they could go to the full House and Senate.
The state E-Verify requirement for employers with 25 or more workers was approved in 2023, replacing a requirement that such businesses use E-Verify or what are known as I-9 forms. Employers that do not use the system three times within any 24-month period face $1,000-a-day fines until they show compliance. Further noncompliance could result in suspension of state licenses.
“For too long, loopholes have allowed businesses to exploit illegal labor at the expense of law-abiding Floridians,” Jacques wrote when he proposed this year’s bill.
The 2023 law didn’t require existing employees to be checked or include independent contractors --- as defined in federal laws --- in determining whether companies are subject to the law. That wouldn’t change under Jacques’ proposal.
A similar bill has not been heard in the Senate.
