Exclusive–Ron DeSantis: E-Verify Critical to Ensure Americans Get Jobs in Pandemic, Not Cheap Foreign Labor

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) says mandatory E-Verify, which bans employers from hiring illegal aliens, is critical during the Chinese coronavirus crisis that has spurred mass unemployment.

Since taking office, DeSantis has had a vigilant pro-enforcement, pro-American worker immigration agenda that has resulted in a ban on sanctuary cities across the state, partial mandatory E-Verify, and statewide cooperation with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

DeSantis, despite Republican and donor class opposition, told SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Daily that mandatory E-Verify is especially important as Florida economically reopens. More mandatory E-Verify provisions, DeSantis hinted, are forthcoming.

LISTEN: 

“My first year in office, we did the ban on sanctuary cities, that involves working with the 287(g) program with ICE and the Florida state prison and working with local sheriffs to facilitate that,” DeSantis said:

We did do E-Verify for private employers. I’m also going to be rolling out an executive order, probably after the election, where we put some more gloss onto that … look, we did E-Verify before the pandemic, but now with the pandemic, we’re trying to get people back to work. Those have got to be American workers, there should not be cheap foreign labor pouring in given that situation.

I think it’s been good. The response has been great and I think it really cuts across party lines and I think people really do want to have a rule of law. We’ve done more in a year and a half in Florida on this than had been done in the last 25 years and we think we’ve gotten a lot of momentum.

Similarly, DeSantis said he is looking to expand law and order across Florida with plans to defund localities that defund their local police departments, mandatory prison sentences for rioters, and allowing residents to sue local public officials if they are personally harmed by riots.

“I put out a proposal last week that would do a lot of things,” DeSantis explained:

One, if a locality defunds the police, the state’s going to defund that locality.

Two, if a local government is derelict like we’ve seen in Portland or Minneapolis and you get hurt or your business gets damaged, then you can sue, we’re waving sovereign immunity. You sue that local official, local government for damages.

And then we increase penalties for things like a violent protest, throwing bricks at police, blocking roads, going to a restaurant and harassing people who are just sitting there trying to enjoy a meal. So you’re going to be in a situation where one of these protestors throws a brick at a cop, they’re going to jail, they’re not going to have bail, and then even after that, the presumption is going to be against and they’re going to have a six-month mandatory jail sentence. Once you start doing that, you’re not going to see this happen.

“That’s not the society we want and so we’re going to fight back,” DeSantis said of rioters harassing innocent bystanders.

Mandatory E-Verify remains one of the most popular policies across the nation. In Florida, 60 percent of voters support mandatory E-Verify, including more than 56 percent of Hispanic Americans, 77 percent of Republicans, and 60 percent of swing voters.

Mass immigration has direct impacts on the nation’s working and middle class, who are forced to compete for U.S. jobs with millions of newly arrived illegal and legal immigrants every year. Annually, the current immigration system gives green cards to about 1.2 million mostly low-skilled foreign nationals and work visas to another 1.4 million foreign nationals.

Though the big business lobby and corporate interests claim that the labor pool must be expanded to provide them with a never-ending flow of foreign workers, between 20 to 30 million Americans today remain unemployed, underemployed, or out of the labor force, though all want full-time jobs.

In a state like Florida, where immigrants make up about 25.4 percent of the labor force, American workers have their weekly wages reduced by perhaps 12.5 percent.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.