Florida’s hospitality lobby asked state lawmakers for a way to allow undocumented workers to fill labor shortages

Last year, as Florida’s service and hospitality industries scrambled to address labor shortages worsened by the state’s harsh new immigration policies, the major lobbying group representing them pitched an idea to state legislators that they believed could help: Why not make it easier for employers to lawfully hire the sizable number of undocumented immigrants who have lived and worked under the table in Florida for years?

The Sunshine State is home to the country’s third-largest population of undocumented immigrants — 747,000, as of 2022 — who contribute roughly $1.8 billion to the state’s economy through local and state taxes. Behind construction and agriculture, hospitality is the top industry employing the largest shares of the country’s undocumented workforce. It’s also a pivotal industry in Central Florida, as a popular tourist destination home to major theme parks like Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld.

The Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, a state affiliate of the politically influential National Restaurant Association, went so far as to draft legislation for Florida lawmakers’ review last year, according to documents Orlando Weekly exclusively obtained through a public records request.

Dubbed the “Essential Worker Act,” the proposal sought to create an ‘essential worker’ permit program allowing people who have lived in Florida for at least three years, and who meet certain eligibility criteria, to be lawfully employed in the state. Under a controversial immigration law (SB 1718) approved by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023, employers who knowingly hire or recruit undocumented workers in Florida can be subject to penalties that include the suspension of their business license.

“This doesn’t establish permanent citizenship and doesn’t confer any rights that accompany permanent citizenship,” an explainer document for the restaurant lobby’s proposal reassures. “It only provides a mechanism to lawfully work.”

The draft legislation, which does not explicitly mention the term “undocumented,” was clearly pitched as a way to address staffing troubles.

“The Legislature recognizes that there is an insufficient workforce in the state, which will lead to a significant reduction in economic activity and have a deleterious impact on the state’s businesses, families, and communities,” the draft legislation reads. “It is the intent of the Legislature to devise an essential workers initiative through which industries in the state can attract and retain employees that are needed to operate, meet consumer demand, and remain ahead of strategic competitors or adversaries.”

Under the proposal, qualified applicants are defined as individuals “without authorization who intend to work in the state,” including adults or minors with a parent or guardian’s permission. With their application, they’d be required to provide proof that they have lived in Florida for at least three years. Such proof could include records such as rent receipts, school or hospital records, birth certificates of children born in the U.S., insurance policies, mortgages, or “similar evidence,” according to the draft.

Applicants with felony convictions on their record, a drug or alcohol addiction, or history of certain infectious medical conditions, such as syphilis or gonorrhea, would not be eligible for the program, which would be enforced by the Florida Department of Commerce. Applicants would be required to pay an initial $500 fee for the permit, and to renew their permit at a cost of $100 annually.

Additionally, all applicants would be required to provide evidence of employment or a job offer within 30 days of submitting an application. Applicants with limited English proficiency would be required to make a “good faith” effort to “become proficient in the English language at or above an intermediate level.” (The term “intermediate level” is not defined, as one attorney for the Florida House points out in draft documents.)

According to a recent blog post from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the leisure and hospitality industries have experienced the highest quit rates of all industries since 2021.The Florida Restaurant and Lobbying Association, a group with allies on both sides of the political spectrum, represents more than 10,000 restaurant owners and hoteliers statewide, with a board of directors that includes executives from companies like the Ritz Carlton and Loews Hotel at Universal Orlando.

Yet, despite going so far as to send their “Essential Workers” proposal off to bill drafting late last year, the proposal was never publicly filed for consideration. It was abandoned by the FRLA ahead of Florida’s 2024 legislative session, records show, as the group rallied behind a successful right-wing effort to leverage teenagers to fill industries’ labor shortages instead.

“We are opting to shelve this proposal for the time being,” wrote FRLA lobbyist Samantha Padgett, in a Dec. 6, 2023 email to an aide for Democratic State Rep. Joe Casello. “We are certainly grateful for the Representative’s willingness to help.”

Email communications retrieved through the Florida Senate show the proposal was also pitched to Florida Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez, a Republican from South Florida who showed interest in carrying the legislation on the Senate side.

Rodriguez, the daughter of Cuban immigrants, voted in favor of Florida’s 2023 immigration law, which even Republican agricultural commissioner Wilton Simpson later admitted could have “unintended consequences.”

“I do think that there are unintended consequences in our construction industry, in our hotel, restaurant, lodging,” Simpson said last August, one month after the 2023 law took effect. “And I don’t know that we fully understand the downside to the new law. I know the intentions were good.”

With announced plans from President-elect Donald Trump for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants beginning on day one of his presidency, Orlando Weekly reached out to Padgett to ask if her group was planning to re-pitch this “essential worker” initiative to Florida lawmakers for consideration in 2025.

She declined to say. “While FRLA actively engages in policy development and advocacy that supports a strong workforce and strong economy, we have not yet finalized our legislative agenda for the 2025 session,” she wrote in an email.

However, after Padgett relayed her group’s desire to “shelve” the proposal last year, she indicated the draft could see a possible return. “We are hoping to revisit this issue in the future,” she wrote to Casello’s aide last December.

Jeremy Haicken, president of UNITE HERE Local 737 — a labor union that represents thousands of employees in Orlando’s tourism and hospitality industries — welcomed the idea. “This proposed legislation is an acknowledgement that the billionaires who own and run Florida’s hotels can’t get the work done without the thousands of undocumented immigrants who work alongside workers with legal status,” Haicken told Orlando Weekly in a statement, after we sent the union a copy of the draft proposal.

Haicken’s local is currently in union contract negotiations with the Hilton Buena Vista Palace and Doubletree Universal, with existing contracts for hotel staff set to expire at year’s end. “Let’s cut the anti-immigrant rhetoric and focus on protections, raises, and health insurance for everyone working in the hotel industry,” said Haicken.

Under another Trump presidency, and in a state with an increasingly red Legislature, it’s possible that the priorities of the state’s restaurant and tourism lobby will shift. While the FRLA declined to offer comment on Trump’s immigration platform and his deportation threats, their national affiliate has subtly raised the alarm.

The National Restaurant Association wrote in a post-election memo that they hope the Trump administration will support immigrants “who contribute to the economy, like those in the hospitality industry.” In response to Trump’s deportation plan, the association said, “We are assessing what impact such actions could have on supply chains for agriculture products, as well as workers in the industry.”

Vice President-elect J.D. Vance has claimed that 11 million undocumented immigrants can expect to be deported within six months of Trump’s inauguration, according to the New York Times, and another 2.7 million people with temporary protection from deportation — through DACA or other humanitarian programs — also face an uncertain future. Tom Homan, Trump’s pick for “border czar,” has said the plan would focus on undocumented people with criminal histories.

It’s expected to be costly, if it does materialize. The American Immigration Council, an immigration policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., released a report last month estimating that Trump’s deportation plan could cost taxpayers at least $315 billion, a figure that includes the cost of arresting, jailing and removing people, as well as the estimated impact on the U.S. economy and tax base.

Trump, however, has claimed there is “no price tag” that would be inappropriate for carrying out the plan. Economic experts predict the proposal could cause increased inflation, labor shortages, and delayed growth and profit for small businesses in industries that employ higher numbers of immigrant workers.

The National Home Builders Association, another influential industry group with a state affiliate in Florida, even publicly came out against Trump’s deportation proposal ahead of the 2024 election, warning it could push up home prices and inhibit home builders’ ability to put up more affordable housing amid an ongoing shortage.

“It would be detrimental to the construction industry and our labor supply, and exacerbate our housing affordability problems,” Jim Tobin, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders, told NBC News in October.

The Florida Home Builders Association did not respond to an email request for comment on the implications of Trump’s deportation plan. Similarly facing worker shortages in their own industry, however, the group supported a measure in Florida this year that allows more young workers (age 16 and older) to work jobs previously deemed too “hazardous” for minors on construction sites. The group argued the bill, approved by Florida lawmakers with bipartisan support, would help teens “identify tangible career goals” and “remove barriers to economic self-sufficiency.”

Critics, however, framed it as a ploy to fill labor shortages with cheap labor. “If you look at who is supporting these efforts to try to weaken child labor laws across the country, it’s the same companies who are often leaders in wage theft problems,” David Weil, former head of the federal U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division under the Obama administration, previously told Orlando Weekly. “So what are they doing? They’re trying to find the least-cost way of expanding their labor supply.”

Florida is one of 31 states that have sought in recent years to weaken child labor protections, often with the support of industry groups and right-wing think tanks such as the Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability. Weakening federal child labor law to allow more minors to work “hazardous” jobs is also on the agenda of Trump allies.

Felipe Sousa, executive director of Hope CommUnity Center — an advocacy organization in Apopka that serves more than 20,000 mostly immigrant families each year — said the Trump administration’s deportation threats have instilled a sense of fear and sadness in Central Florida’s immigrant communities. They’ve also forced families, whether undocumented or of mixed status, to have difficult conversations about how to plan for the future.

“I think that it’s important for all of us to be really clear that these threats are real,” Sousa told Orlando Weekly. President-elect Trump has tapped several officials for his incoming administration who are expected to embrace his deportation wishes, including Homan and longtime policy adviser Stephen Miller, an alleged white nationalist and the architect of policies that put unaccompanied children in cages during the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border during Trump’s first term.

“We should expect nothing less than what he [Trump] promised,” said Sousa, “which is one million deportations a year. And that’s going to create a disastrous impact on immigrant families, but also on all of us.”

Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | or sign up for our RSS Feed

This article appears in Nov 20-26, 2024.