Orlando Sentinel Misleadingly Claims Wilton Simpson is Soft on Illegal Immigrant Labor in Florida

August 18, 2022 Updated 11:45 A.M. ET

TALLAHASSEE (FLV) – Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell published an article claiming GOP frontrunner for Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson is “full of it” by allowing agriculture companies to “keep hiring and exploiting illegal labor without the mandatory checks” of E-Verify.

“Simpson, an egg farmer himself, claims on his website that America ‘is threatened when illegal immigration is allowed to thrive as it has under the Biden Administration.’ He also has a TV ad up featuring Florida sheriffs who say: ‘He’ll combat illegal immigration.’ But here’s the thing: He didn’t; not where it counted most,” Maxwell claims.

E-Verify is a federal database used to ensure employees are legal U.S. citizens. The bill he referred to, SB 664, which did not include a provision for E-Verify for farmers, was passed at a time where Wilton Simpson was not the State Senate President.

“But Simpson and pals didn’t do anything of the sort. Instead, they passed SB 664 in 2020, which only requires state agencies and contractors to use E-Verify to vet their hires.”