Critics warned that Florida’s crackdown on illegal immigrants would crater the state’s economy. They were wrong. https://www.city-journal.org/article/trust-e-verify Florida progressives made many dire predictions before the state’s tough new immigration law took effect on July 1, 2023. They claimed that critical industries would face massive labor shortfalls, bringing soaring prices and perhaps even food shortages. Left-wing think tanks warned that Florida’s workforce would plummet by as much as 10 percent, with fearful immigrants fleeing the state. Some predicted that Florida’s economy would crater by $13 billion per year. More than half a year later, none of these predictions has materialized. If anything, the results so far show the opposite. Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 1718 into law in May 2023. Among other provisions, the new law invalidated out-of-state driver’s licenses given to illegal immigrants, required hospitals to quantify uncompensated care given to them, and, perhaps most controversially, compelled employers with at least 25 employees to use E-Verify to check new hires’ legal status. Local and national media sowed panic about the law, which they almost uniformly labeled an “anti-immigration crackdown” rather than an illegal-immigration crackdown. Som