TAMPA, Fla — Ten years in the past, with a signature and a speech, former President Barack Obama gave certainty via an government order to immigrants who got here to the U.S. as kids.
“They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one — on paper,” the former president said in 2012.
In 2017 that security became unclear and left dreamers with no path to citizenship.
“Essentially, nothing has changed, it’s still in effect, but nothing has been done to move forward with DACA,” said Steve Maggi, the founder of SMA Lawfirm in St. Petersburg.
He said many people don’t realize how crucial immigrants are to the Tampa economy.
“Thirty percent of Tampa Bay businesses are owned by immigrants, but only 17% of Tampa Bay residents are immigrants, which means they’re highly entrepreneurial, and they’re creating hundreds of thousands of jobs with the businesses they set up,” he said.
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He said many Fortune 500 companies in Florida are immigrant-owned or founded by kids of immigrants and include companies that are tech related in fields like aerospace, financial, and medical.
“They’re also innovators, and they’re creating jobs that wouldn’t exist otherwise,” Maggi said. “Brand new technologies that wouldn’t have existed 10 years ago.”
But he believes that innovation is threatened by the lingering worry of deportation.
“The UK is the primary investor in Florida, you could have somebody from the UK who places up a half 1,000,000 to arrange a start-up within the Tampa Bay space, however then they’ve problem getting a visa to really develop and direct their enterprise,” Maggi stated. “That’s what’s problematic.”
It’s why he wants Congress to come together and pass a law that helps dreamers take steps to become green card holders and eventually citizens.
“Who are the immigrants that are most important? Well, they’re the ones that are filling the jobs that are not being filled otherwise like in Florida in agriculture, healthcare, construction, and commercial and residential cleaning,” he stated. “You’re talking about half of the workforce are immigrants. Those industries with literally shut down if immigrants were not occupying those positions.”
The “American Dream and Promise act” would supply a transparent path to citizenship. It handed the home however should nonetheless move the Senate and be signed into legislation by President Biden.