Brayan De Los Rios said it’s getting harder for him to make ends meet.

His sales at Latin Touch Spanish Grocery in Brandon have dropped by more than 30% since January. He’s worried many of his Hispanic customers have stopped coming because they are afraid of new immigration policies out of Tallahassee and Washington, D.C.

He believes reports of raids and videos on social media showing immigration agents arresting people without legal status near shopping malls or neighborhoods are keeping customers away.

“I don’t know how much longer we can keep going. People’s fear is real,” said De Los Rios, 41.

Gov. Ron DeSantis last week signed into law new, tougher state laws that will make Florida “the strongest state in the nation for immigration enforcement,” he wrote on social media. The law follows president Trump’s push for stricter immigration rules, including stronger border security, ending programs that helped immigrants get legal status, and ordering mass deportations.

But local advocates and nonprofit organizations in Tampa responded to Florida’s new immigration law with deep concern. Some say the law contains significant loopholes and contradictions, such as a failure to strengthen E-Verify or add more resources to enforce and monitor compliance among businesses. Others predict the new laws will create more uncertainty, selective enforcement and potential racial bias, even against those with legal status.

Elizabeth Gutierrez, founder of the nonprofit Enterprising Latinas, which develops workforce training and opportunities for minorities and Hispanic women in Wimauma, said the state government is overstepping and failing to address more urgent state issues.

“Florida’s Anti-Immigrant Law harms families, businesses, and public safety,” Gutierrez said. “It does nothing to address the state’s most critical needs, like the creation of higher-wage jobs and building of housing that all Florida residents can afford.”

Florida’s new legislation approved on Thursday sets aside nearly $300 million for immigration enforcement and repeals a law that previously allowed Dreamers ― students brought to the country illegally by their parents ― to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.

The new provisions also mandate the death penalty for immigrants living in the country illegally who commit capital offenses and establish a new offense for entering Florida after unlawfully arriving in the United States. The new law did not require more companies to use E-Verify, the system that checks a worker’s legal status, and did not add more funding for its enforcement.

Alayne Unterberger, executive director of the Tampa-based Florida Institute for Community Studies, said these new state laws are not only unnecessary but cruel, potentially separating people from their families, regardless of their legal status.

Unterberger said many Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens, have already been arrested by immigration enforcement agents. She said 40% of the children in Hillsborough County’s public schools are Hispanic or Latino, and many are struggling with mental health problems from the pandemic. The new laws, she said, only add to these problems, creating more issues later on.

“Florida had a choice but decided to create a crisis when there was none. Policies that call for racial profiling while not requiring E-verify for employers send a clear signal that the real intent is to instill fear and create mass trauma,” she said. “Make no mistake that this affects every single person who might look like ‘an immigrant’ regardless of their legal status.”

The largest unauthorized immigrant populations in the nation are in California (1.8 million), Texas (1.6 million), and Florida (1.2 million), according to the Pew Research Center. Together, these states account for 41% of the nation’s unauthorized population.

Kara Gross, legislative director and senior policy counsel at the ACLU of Florida, said the law in Florida is poised to strain the state’s relationship with its home-owning and tax-paying immigrant communities, fostering a climate of “fear and distrust.”

“By implementing some of the most punitive immigration policies in the country, Florida is sending a clear message that immigrant communities are not welcome,” Gross said.

One of the most immediate and damaging effects of this law will be the erosion of trust between immigrant communities and state institutions, according to Gross.

“The sweeping nature of the law will inevitably lead to racial and ethnic profiling of anyone perceived to be an immigrant based on the color of their skin, the accent in their voice, the neighborhoods they live in, or the restaurants and businesses they frequent,” she said.

Juana Lozano, a health outreach worker for the Farmworkers Association of Florida, said the new legislation will cause more harm than 2023’s immigration bill, SB 1718.

That blocked local ID programs for unauthorized immigrants, canceled out-of-state licenses, criminalized transporting immigrants without legal status, required hospitals to report immigration status, and mandated E-Verify for businesses with 25 or more employees.

“Soon, we will realize that one of the biggest political mistakes is being made against the entire community,” Lozano said. “It is really sad.”

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