FORT MYERS, Fla. — People protested illegal immigration at Shandler Hall Park in Fort Myers, June 28. It came after hundreds of people protested earlier in the day on the heels of Governor Ron DeSantis' new immigration laws.
They include but are not limited to hospitals being required to ask citizenship status of its patients, and companies with more than 25 employees of its workers. These policies start on July 1.
Wednesday's counter protest brought out a few dozen people, including Michael Laiba, a Latino-American immigrant.
"My parents, came here as teenagers with their parents. They made the sacrifices to come here legally to start new and create an entire life for their children," Laiba said.
He stressed the importance of people reading through the bill before forming opinions.
Michael Thompson, the Chairman of the Lee County Republican Executive Committee, calls the new legislation a crack-down.
"They've [illegal immigrants] never been targeted like this before, there's a reason why. The root cause is the southern boarder, it's not Governor DeSantis picking on a specific race of people," Thompson said.
Laiba says, illegal immigration has real impacts on his family. "I have cousins that have been waiting a decade to come into this country, but they are put second to last because we have such a severe problem with illegal immigration."
Toward the end of the counter-protest, Milagros Hernandez and a group of friends joined. She attended to stress the importance of immigrants, documented or not. "The people on top of those roofs after the hurricane, many of them were immigrants."
She says everyone was once an immigrant and that's why she finds these laws unfair.
