Florida Largest State in Country to Do Full E-Verify for Employment

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Wednesday highlighted his administration’s latest efforts to combat the nation’s border crisis via Senate Bill 1718, which essentially makes the Sunshine State the largest state in the country to do full E-Verify for employment.

Speaking from the Miller Electric Company in Jacksonville, Florida, DeSantis announced the signing of Senate Bill 1718 as Florida’s latest action to stand up against bad immigration policies at the federal level.

“Even the New York Times admitted this is the strongest legislation against illegal immigration anywhere in the country,” DeSantis said during the press conference, explaining that the bill “makes Florida the largest state in the country to do full E-Verify for employment.”

“And that’s important, because the people are going to come if they get benefits. And so what you want to do is say there’s not benefits for coming illegally,” he said, asserting that this alone will deter illegal immigrants from coming to Florida for refuge.

WATCH: Debris Field Along South Texas Border After 20K Migrants Cross in 12 Days:

Texas Department of Public Safety

“It’s already against the law for someone to be employed if they’re here illegally, but the E-Verify provides a way to make sure that that’s enforceable. So we think that that’s something that’s going to make a big, big difference,” DeSantis explained.

DeSantis said the bill also “enhances human smuggling penalties” and “prohibits county governments and NGOs from using tax dollars to provide IDs for illegal aliens.”

Florida, he said, will not recognize out-of-state licenses issued to illegal aliens from other states:

A lot of people in across the country who want open borders, they want driver’s licenses and you have it in — I think in California and a number of these other states. We’ve never done that. But what happens is you have some of these local governments that are actually working with private groups to generate ID cards to be able to be used, as if that makes you legal to be here. So we’re not going to recognize that. We’re also not going to recognize a driver’s license from California [if] it was issued to somebody here illegally or these other states.

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“We’re protecting Floridians with the full extent of our powers to do that. But it’s sad. It’s sad to see what’s happened. It’s sad to see these images of the lawlessness,” he said, blasting President Biden for refusing to take action.