MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — Miami-Dade County-based business owners in the plant nursery industry say President Donald Trump’s push for deportation has created a labor shortage that may prompt some businesses to close.
The entrepreneur said the Trump administration’s recent end of Temporary Protected Status for about 300,000 Haitians created a labor shortage, and even though he raised pay to $25 per hour, he is unable to find workers to employ.
“We are losing a lot of money,” said an entrepreneur who operates a palm tree nursery, and has lost half of his staff and tens of thousands of dollars.
The Trump administration also ended TPS for Venezuelans, Hondurans, and Nicaraguans. In southern Miami-Dade, the entrepreneur, who said he voted for Trump, added that he had too many palm trees and not enough hands to care for them.
He added that it isn’t easy to find agricultural workers in South Florida. It’s hard work, he said.
“We are going to have to close,” the entrepreneur said.
Witnesses said Krome Avenue traffic stops to check immigration status are common. Many employers used to pick up day workers and travel in groups to the farms in southern Miami-Dade.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported deporting hundreds of thousands since the start of the second Trump administration, according to the White House. Last year, DHS reported 1.9 million had “self-deported” and 605,000 had been deported.
During the push for deportations, ICE agents and officers have partnered with Florida Highway Patrol troopers and other local law enforcement agencies for traffic stops.
“They surround the car, and everyone goes down,” a witness said in Spanish while recording a video of a detention earlier this year. “They are deporting good workers. It’s abusive. I voted for Trump but I didn’t vote for this.”
Critics of the push for deportations fear that the labor shortages that are hurting businesses will eventually end up driving up consumer prices.
Some Miami-Dade entrepreneurs hope the midterm elections will prompt the Trump administration to stop aggressive actions, so workers can go back to the farms and nurseries, and businesses can recover.
Advocates of undocumented migrants say fear has many in hiding. Congress recently passed a $70 billion immigration enforcement funding package for the Department of Homeland Security, and Trump signed it into law on June 10.
On Monday, DHS published a notice reporting a plan to spend up to $20 million by March on thousands of gloves that will make it easier for ICE officers to deliver painful electric shocks to detainees, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
The DHS plans to purchase the gloves from Kentucky-based Compliant Technologies LLC, which manufactures the “Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter,” or G.L.O.V.E., so an officer is able to press a switch to gain compliance in seconds.
Related stories
- Miami chef on chilling effect of immigration policy: TPS causes worker shortage; ICE detention scares customers
- Trump’s end of TPS threatens status of Miami residents who identify as Haitian American
- ICE says it expects to equip every field officer with body cameras by the end of August
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