Republican hopefuls have been trying to position themselves on U.S. politics’ hard-right edge as the 2024 presidential election season approaches.
Given the success of far-right politicians like Donald Trump or Texas Gov., their jockeying is not surprising. Greg Abbott and strategists like Steve Bannon have been successful in rousing Republican primary voters.
Florida is the best place to see this pivot rightward.
Since the 2020 election, Florida’s position on a range of issues — from abortionTo the minimum wage — has only gotten more uncompromising. The Mississippi-inspired 15-week ban is being considered by legislators on abortion. In response to the grassroots demand for a minimum wage law, legislators are considering whether to ban cities from creating their own living wage requirements that are greater than the statewide minimum. GOP state senators are also drafting legislation that will massively dilute a 2020 initiative passed with more than 60% support. This puts the state on the path to a universal living wage. $15 per hour minimum wage by 2026. Meanwhile, pandering to Trump’s big lie about the last election having been stolen from him, the Florida Senate is debating a bill to create a special police force devoted exclusively to rooting out purported voter fraud.
In recent months, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Republican legislators from the Sunshine State have been competing with Texas to see which red state can come up with the most hard-right policies, especially when they are related to immigration. Abbott, who is running for reelection later this year, has championed a Texas law encouraging undocumented immigrants to be arrested and prosecuted for trespassing, and has, over the past year, sent thousands of his state’s National Guard troops to the border.
DeSantis was signed into law in June 2019. SB 168Which? mandated that local law enforcement agencies cooperate with federal immigration authorities through enforcing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer requests, and which banned local authorities from declaring their cities to be “sanctuary cities” in the face of then-President Trump’s onslaught against immigrant communities.
Critics compared it with the notorious SB 1070, passed in Arizona in 2010, which unleashed sheriff’s deputies and police against undocumented immigrants and led to a huge upsurge both in deportations from the state and in undocumented immigrants relocating to other, less harsh, locales.
The following year, the Florida Department of Children and Families announced new rulesThis was done to crackdown on churches and shelters that provide assistance to children crossing the border to the U.S. alone. In the hope of forcing the young asylees to leave, the department threatened to not renew their licenses and to stop funding these organizations.
Recently, Florida Republicans advanced a bill. HB 1355,The bill, which ostensibly aims to crack down on companies that provide transportation for migrants who enter the country undocumented, prohibits the state from doing business and municipalities from doing so with these companies. The bill, which was proposed by State Rep. John Snyder, DeSantis reportedly considers it a priority.
HB 1355’s language is so broad that it would apply to churches, food pantries, and other nonprofits that offer humanitarian assistance to migrants. The bill is not supported by Democrats. DeSantis is pushing it aggressively, presumably to protect his right flank against rival candidates like Donald Trump or Texas Gov. Greg Abbott prepares for a possible presidential run.
On Thursday of last week, the House State Affairs Committee passed the bill — which, in addition to clamping down on those who offer assistance to undocumented immigrants and would-be-asylees, also requires local law enforcement agencies to enter into so-called 287(g) agreements with ICE — making it all but certain that it will soon be the law of the land in Florida.
Snyder denies that his bill targets undocumented children, but it’s worded in a way that puts the burden of proof for a person’s immigration status on that individual, including children. The ACLU reacted furiouslyA statement was made stating:
This bill’s most troubling provision targets children and asylum seekers by banning organizations and private businesses from providing transportation to immigrants in Florida. Private entities would be required to prove their immigration status to every child or adult using their transportation service. This would increase the likelihood of unlawful interrogations and racial discrimination.
This is exactly the kind of discrimination that law enforcement agencies, such as Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s department in Maricopa County, Arizona, was developed after SB 1070 passed. This led many lawsuits and a more polarized political environment. This led to Arpaio being pushed from power by a coalition of immigrant-led immigrants.
DeSantis, however, doesn’t seem to fear political blowback. At the moment, he is riding high in the polls in Florida, looks likely to win reelection in November, and has rapidly emerged as one of the only serious contenders who could block Trump from securing the GOP nomination in 2024 — although at the moment, he still remains far behind Trump in terms of his appeal to GOP primary voters.
The governor is adept at exploiting wedge issues that most anger the GOP base. His nativist policies could end up hurting young, vulnerable asylum seekers, but will not address the complex issues that led to so many asylum seekers. But despite this — or maybe because of it — he has enjoyed wild popularity among Republicans after pushing these policies. DeSantis is polling eight points ahead of his likely Democratic rival, one-time Gov. Charlie CristIn the upcoming election. In fact, DeSantis’s positioning of Florida as a perceived counterpoint to the Biden administrationHis support for the country’s immigration policies has helped him to become a standard-bearer of conservatives in the next election cycles. He will not relinquish his position anytime soon, I think.
