Florida's Universal E-Verify Mandate Passes House Floor

By Liv Caputo, Florida Phoenix

January 16, 2026

For the second year in a row, the Florida House has greenlit a measure requiring all businesses to use a federal verification tool to determine whether new hires can legally work in the country.

HB 197, sponsored by Seminole Republican Rep. Berny Jacques, would mandate that all employers use the online database called E-Verify. This expands a 2023 law championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which demanded E-Verify for public businesses and private ones with more than 25 employees.

This is the second year the E-Verify bill has cleared the House. Last year, the measure never gained traction in the Senate. It remains to be seen whether its identical companion bill, filed by Sen. Jonathan Martin, will be scheduled for a committee hearing.

“If this bill passes, it would expose a lot of law breakers that are harming Floridians, that are harming law abiding people who want to get into the workforce, and harming law abiding businesses,” Jaques said Thursday from the House floor.

Rep. Berny Jacques introduces his E-Verify bill on the House Floor on Jan. 15, 2026. (Via Liv Caputo/Florida Phoenix)

“It’s time for us to finally get this done.”

The bill passed in an 80 to 30 vote, with four Democrats voting with the Republican majority and two Republicans voting with the Democrats.

Of note, more than 475,000 small businesses in Florida have fewer than 20 employees, according to a 2025 report by the Small Business Administration. Not counting businesses without employees — of which there are more than 2 million — there are fewer than 518,000 small businesses in Florida.

Jacques’ bill is emblematic of a nationwide push to tighten immigration laws, spearheaded by President Donald Trump and most clearly mirrored in Florida. Trump has mobilized Border Patrol within the country to supplant and aid ICE while the Sunshine State exists as the first (and only) in the nation to require all of its counties to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Under DeSantis, Florida also constructed the first state-run migrant detention center, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz.” States including Indiana, Nebraska, and Louisiana quickly followed suit.

Not all were in support of Jacques’ bills. Democrats cited fears of undue costs on small business owners and past reports of unreliability within the E-Verify system.

“We don’t need this fake fix forcing private employers to use a broken and unreliable federal database in the form of a big government mandate,” said Rep. Dotie Joseph, a North Miami Democrat. “It’s bad for business and bad for Florida.”

Others pointed to alleged burdens on small businesses, with Rep. Yvette Hinson pointing to a 2010 Bloomberg study estimating that E-Verify implementation cost small businesses $81 million.

Although E-Verify requires documents like an I-9 to prove work authorization, cases of identity theft have permeated the platform. E-Verify can determine whether documents are valid, but it can’t always determine whether they are the valid documents of a person besides the potential new hire, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

But Jacques pushed back. He argued that E-Verify has been in use since 1996, and that some small businesses contracting with public agencies are also required to use the database.

“This is nothing new,” he said.

In 2023, then-Sen. Blaise Ingoglia sponsored the law to require private businesses with at least 25 employees to use E-Verify. It was part of a large immigration package that also required Medicaid-accepting hospitals to annually report how many undocumented immigrants they treat.

Despite this, Florida Republicans criticized the DeSantis administration for failing to penalize businesses that hadn’t been using E-Verify. The statute requires businesses that ignore E-Verify laws three times within two years to face a $1,000 fine per day.

DeSantis, in turn, sent out warning letters to 40 companies either ignoring or refusing to implement E-Verify.

The Florida Phoenix, a nonprofit news site that’s free of advertising and free to readers, covers state government and politics through a mix of in-depth stories, briefs, and social media updates on the latest events, editorial cartoons, and progressive commentary. The Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers.