Empty fields. Rotting crops. Higher food prices. What's behind the farmworker exodus from Florida?
DeSantis' MAGA Republican politicizes immigration. SB 1718 impacts over 800,000 undocumented immigrants in Florida. Restricts access to healthcare. Threatens harsh penalties. Many are mixed-status families — where a son or daughter, for example, might be a US citizen while their parents are not. Terrified workers stream out of Florida leaving fields empty and crops rotting in fields.
How many farmworkers are there in different Florida districts? What kind of work do they do? How much do they earn? Who are the politicians behind this racist bill that created this crisis? How can you contact them?
Republican WAR ON BUSINESS
"Florida is home to about 800,000 undocumented immigrants, and many work in the kinds of businesses that would be impacted by the law, known as SB 1718. Many of those affected are also members of mixed-status families — where a son or daughter, for example, might be a US citizen while their parents are not. The bill’s impact extends beyond the workplace to health care and highways: Even family members could be targets of law enforcement under a new provision that punishes anyone who transports an undocumented person “knowingly and willfully” into Florida across state lines.
The law also requires Florida hospitals that accept Medicaid to collect the immigration status of patients and calculate and report the cost of health care for undocumented people to the state; it no longer permits undocumented people to use driver’s licenses issued from other states and prohibits state ID cards to be issued to them. Combined, these provisions may also deal a devastating blow to Florida businesses that rely on migrant labor, as it may force workers and their families to flee Florida."
MAGA Racism
“The narrative that immigrants are not welcome here is going to have a huge impact on our business community — in particular industries such as construction, hospitality, health care, and agriculture — because they rely solely or primarily on migrant labor. As fear becomes the norm in immigrant communities, a lot of these migrant workers will start leaving the state and looking somewhere else,” Vilchez Santiago said. “And there is a lot of fear in migrant communities across the state.” - VOX
“America has such deep needs right now, particularly in labor. Yet policymakers take our immigrant communities for granted. No más. Time to stop biting the hands that feed.” - AOC
Purposeful storytelling
How do you explain the harm from MAGA Republicans' racist policies and how to hold the politicians responsible accountable?
1. Create a map with ArcGIS Online which shows the number of farmworkers per Florida district. This was overlaid with political districts and contact details of the political rep.
2. Create an AI-generated image with MidJourney to illustrate the issue.
3. Prompt used: "Close up picture. An ultra-realistic photo of a large group of hispanic farm workers families with men, women and children. In a distance there is DeSantis scowling and shouting at them as they walk away. Use a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV DSLR camera with an EF 50mm f/ 1. 8 STM lens for this shot. Aim for a resolution of 30. 4 megapixels, ISO sensitivity of 32, 000, and a shutter speed of 8000 seconds. The style should be raw, with a quality of 2 and a sharpness of 750, Photo of man standing. Shoot it as if it were an editorial shot. Use a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV DSLR camera with an EF 50mm f/ 1. 8 STM lens for this shot. Aim for a resolution of 30. 4 megapixels, ISO sensitivity of 32, 000, and a shutter speed of 8000 seconds. The result should be a hyper - realistic, highly detailed, and high - resolution 16k image. The style should be raw, with a quality of 3 and a sharpness of 1000 --ar 16:9 --v 5.1 --v 5 -"
Keep it simple
Use GIFs and videos to make it easy to understand complex issues. This 27 second video was created with the free iMovie app. (Video clip credit 9NEWS). The video was converted into a GIF using ezGIF and incorporated into this StoryMap.
Resources
DeSantis’ immigration law is already leading to worker shortages - Vox
Protests draw attention to Desantis immigration law - 9 News
Engage The Base, Persuade The Middle - ASO Communications
Share Our Commitment to the Future of Our Country - American Business Immigration Coalition
Build A Better Future - Farmworker Coordinating Council
Task Failed Successfully - Reddit
TakeAway: Hold DeSantis and MAGA Republicans accountable for causing the FLORIDA FARMWORKER EXODUS.
Deepak
DemLabs
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