Undocumented Immigrants in Florida: Work, Driving, and ICE Rules

Florida laws for undocumented immigrants changed significantly on July 1, 2023, when Senate Bill 1718 took effect, and amendments in 2024 added further enforcement. The rules now reach work, driving, hospital intake, transportation across state lines, DNA collection on immigration detainers, and access to college tuition benefits. Here is what each of those pieces actually requires, and where the lines fall.

Working in Florida

Any private employer in the state with 25 or more employees must run new hires through the federal E-Verify system within three business days of their first paid day of work. If E-Verify is down for those three days, the employer uses a federal Form I-9 instead. Verification records have to be kept for at least three years.¹ Covered employers also certify compliance once a year, under penalty of perjury, on their first reemployment tax return.²

Smaller employers, those with fewer than 25 employees, are not required to use E-Verify. Many still do voluntarily. In practical terms, this means the formal verification wall is highest at mid-sized and large employers, and the smallest workplaces fall outside the mandate.

For employers, the consequences for ignoring the rules are real. The Florida Department of Commerce can issue a notice with 30 days to cure, and three violations within a 24-month period trigger fines of $1,000 per day and grounds to suspend every business license the company holds.³ An employer who knowingly hires an unauthorized worker faces a year of probation on a first offense; a second offense within 24 months brings license suspension scaled to the number of workers involved, up to full revocation for more than 50 workers.⁴ The state can also claw back previously awarded economic development incentives.

Driving and Identification

Some states issue driver’s licenses to residents regardless of immigration status. Florida does not accept several of those specific license classes, and the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles publishes an updated list of invalidated types.⁵ Current examples include Connecticut’s “Drive Only” license, Delaware’s Driving Privilege Card, Hawaii’s Limited Purpose Driver’s License, and the Limited Purpose licenses issued in Rhode Island and Vermont. Driving in Florida on one of these licenses carries the same exposure as driving with no license at all. Standard licenses from the same states remain valid; the restriction only hits the specific classes created for people who cannot prove lawful presence.

Florida also blocks counties and cities from using public funds to issue identification cards to people who do not provide proof of lawful presence. Sections 125.0156 and 166.246 of the Florida Statutes close off the kind of local “community ID” programs that exist in some other states.

Local Police and Federal Immigration Enforcement

Sanctuary policies are prohibited. Every state and local law enforcement agency must use “best efforts” to support federal immigration enforcement, and no agency may stop its officers from sharing immigration information with federal authorities or honoring immigration detainers.⁶

If someone in local custody has an active ICE detainer, local police cannot simply release them at the end of local custody. A judge sentencing a defendant subject to a detainer must also issue an order allowing the facility to reduce the sentence by up to 12 days when that helps hand the person over to federal custody.⁶ The system is built to move people from state custody into ICE custody without gaps.

The Hospital Immigration Question

Every Florida hospital that accepts Medicaid must ask patients at admission or at emergency department registration whether they are a U.S. citizen, lawfully present, or not lawfully present. You can decline to answer.⁷

The form itself must state two things: your answer will not affect the care you receive, and it will not be reported to immigration authorities.⁷ The data goes to the state in aggregated form for cost-tracking, not to enforcement agencies.

On top of all of this sits the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. Any hospital with an emergency department has to screen and stabilize anyone with an emergency medical condition, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay. EMTALA has been federal law since 1986, and Florida’s questionnaire does not change it. A hospital that turned someone away in an emergency based on an answer to the immigration question would be violating federal law.

Driving Someone Into Florida

Florida has a state-level human smuggling offense in Section 787.07. A person who knowingly transports someone into Florida who entered the United States illegally, and has not since been inspected by the federal government, commits a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.⁸⁹ Each person transported is a separate charge.

Penalties step up to a second-degree felony, with up to 15 years and a $10,000 fine, if the person transported is a minor, if five or more people are moved in a single episode, or if the driver has a prior conviction under the same statute.⁸¹⁰

Two features of the statute matter. The mental state is “knew or reasonably should have known,” not just actual knowledge, and showing false identification to an investigating officer creates a legal inference that the driver knew.¹¹ The offense also only covers bringing someone across the state line into Florida. Driving someone who is already inside the state from one Florida city to another is not covered by this statute. The reach is also narrower than many assume: it targets people who entered without inspection, so someone who overstayed a visa after a lawful entry may fall outside its scope. Anyone facing a potential charge needs an attorney rather than a guess.

DNA Collection on an Immigration Detainer

Florida’s DNA database statute treats someone in law enforcement custody who is subject to a federal immigration detainer as a “qualifying offender” required to give a DNA sample. This applies even without a criminal conviction, and even when the detainer is the only reason the person qualifies.¹²

The agency must collect the sample immediately on receiving the detainer and send it to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in a timely manner.¹² The sample is loaded into both state and federal databases.

College: Aid and Tuition

Undocumented students, including DACA recipients, are not eligible for federal financial aid. No Pell Grants, no federal student loans, no federal work-study. The FAFSA requires a Social Security number, and students without lawful status select “Neither U.S. citizen nor eligible noncitizen” on the citizenship question.¹³

Florida offers an out-of-state tuition waiver for students who attended a Florida high school for three consecutive years before graduating and then enrolled in a state university or Florida College System institution within 24 months. The waiver is limited to students who are U.S. citizens or lawfully present.¹⁴ Undocumented students who grew up in Florida and graduated from a Florida high school do not qualify. They can still enroll, but at out-of-state tuition rates and without state financial aid.

1
Florida Senate. Florida Code 448.095 – Employment Eligibility
2
Florida Department of Revenue. Florida Reemployment Tax
3
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 448.095 – Employment Eligibility
4
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 448.09 – Unauthorized Aliens; Employment
5
Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. Out-of-State License Classes No Longer Accepted in Florida
6
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 908.104 – Cooperation with Federal Immigration Authorities
7
Florida Senate. Florida Code 395.3027 – Patient Immigration Status Data Collection
8
Florida Senate. Florida Code 787.07 – Human Smuggling
9
Florida Senate. Florida Code 775.082 – Penalties, Applicability of Sentencing Structures, Notification to Department of Corrections
10
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 775.083 – Fines
11
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 787.07 – Human Smuggling
12
Florida Senate. Florida Code 943.325 – DNA Database
13
Federal Student Aid. Eligibility for Non-U.S. Citizens
14
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 1009.26 – Fee Waivers