Latino Truckers to Boycott Florida, Videos Show: 'Will Not Be Going'

Latino truckers have vowed to boycott the state of Florida after Governor Ron DeSantis signed a new law that targets undocumented immigrants, calling for solidarity with "our Latin American brother."

Videos posted on social media in recent days suggest some will be targeting June 1—a month before the new law goes into effect—in defense of those who will face new restrictions under the legislation, while others called for collective action "so they appreciate the emigrant."

The calls for a boycott come in response to the passing of SB 1718 by the state legislature, which among its clauses would require employers to use monitoring software to check that their workers are legally allowed to do so and require hospitals to collect information on undocumented patients.

While the new law—which DeSantis signed on Wednesday—has received plaudits from some Republicans, others have welcomed the potential boycott in a bid to show how the U.S. relies on migrant workers. New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said policymakers across the aisle "take our immigrant communities for granted."

"I don't know about you guys, but my truck will not be going to Florida at all," one driver said in a Saturday TikTok video that has attracted nearly 82,000 likes. "If we all came together as one community for Rogel Aguilera when he was facing injustice, I'm pretty sure we can all come together as a Latino community and boycott Florida as a whole."

Rogel Aguilera-Mederos was a young truck driver in Colorado who in 2021 was sentenced to 110 years in prison for his role in a collision that resulted in four deaths. The sentence prompted controversy and a petition of more than 5.1 million signatures calling for it to be lowered. The sentence was later reduced by Governor Jared Polis to 10 years.

"What they're doing to our brothers and sisters out there is not fair, and even in the truck driving industry we're millions," the trucker added in the video.

In a Thursday video that has been liked nearly 18,000 times, another truck driver can be seen saluting while a voice says in Spanish that his truck will not be picking up or dropping off cargo in Florida "in solidarity."

A video by another trucker is captioned in Spanish that others should not haul cargo to the state "so they appreciate the emigrant" and so "Florida runs out of loads." He also cited Aguilera-Mederos and then added: "My truck doesn't enter Florida; I don't enter Florida."

Responding to that video, Roberto Sandoval, another trucker, called on fellow haulers not to enter Florida beginning in June over what he describes as a "stupid, silly" law and "in defense of our Latin American brother," in a TikTok video posted on Friday that has been viewed 1.2 million times and received more than 96,000 likes.

Sandoval said June 1 will be a "day without emigrants," suggesting they will not attend school, leave their house or go shopping. "We can do something to remove this law together."

"No more discrimination; we immigrants are not criminals, we just come to work here in the U.S.A.," the caption to the video reads.

Newsweek reached out to DeSantis' office via email for comment on Monday.

When he signed the bill into law, DeSantis blamed large amounts of immigration on the Biden administration, adding: "In Florida, we will not stand idly by while the federal government abandons its lawful duties to protect our country."

The Biden administration introduced new measures to reform border enforcement in January but said they "will not solve all of the problems in an immigration system that has been broken for far too long."

The new law in Florida was passed the day before the May 11 expiration of Title 42, a measure enacted by President Donald Trump in March 2020 that allowed Border Patrol agents to rapidly expel migrants back over the U.S.-Mexico border on the grounds of preventing the potential spread of COVID-19.

The U.S. has seen a surge of cross-border migration since then. In the fiscal year ending in March, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded more than 1.2 million crossings along the border, with levels elevated in the final three months of 2022 compared to the same time the year before.