WaPo: “Their arrival puts the Republican strongholds that weathered the worst of the storm in an awkward position as they attempt to recover: With low unemployment, a shortage of construction workers and an above-average elderly population, can Florida rebuild without them?
“We’d like them back,” Nancy Randall, a real estate agent who declined to give her age or political affiliation, said of the immigrants DeSantis had flown to Martha’s Vineyard, after Ian drove four feet of water into her green-shuttered home in Naples, soaking her grandmother’s rocking chair and everything else. “We need all the helpers we can get.”
DeSantis’s office did not respond to questions about the undocumented workers arriving to clean up, but he has promised that more migrant flights will come despite a Treasury Department inspector general investigation into the government money that paid for them.
Construction is one of the biggest employers of undocumented immigrants, with 1.4 million workers across the country filling more than 1 in 10 jobs, researchers say. Nationwide, undocumented immigrants account for 23 percent of construction laborers, 38 percent of drywallers and 32 percent of roofers, according to a report by the nonprofit Center for American Progress last year.”