Biden’s Florida Legacy: an economic boom, a magnet for immigrants and a solidly conservative red state

They were one of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have come in the state in recent years when immigration had overcome former President Joe Biden.

No state was more affected by the increase in immigrants than Florida, according to internal government data obtained by the Associated Press. Florida had 1,271 migrants who arrived from May 2023 to January 2025 for all 100,000 residents, followed by New York, California, Texas and Illinois.

US customs and border protection data, which must check the addresses of all those authorized to enter the United States and stay to continue an immigration case, shows that Miami was the most affected metropolitan area in the United States with 2,191 new migrants per 100,000 residents. Orlando ranked 10th with 1,499 new migrants per 100,000 residents. Tampa ranked 17th and Fort Myers finished 30th.

The Freites and her husband, who had fled violence in Colombia with their three children, moved to Apopka, an agricultural city near Orlando, where immigrants could find less expensive housing than in Miami while they spread in a community that already had large populations of Mexican and Rican Porto. His sister-in-law had a mobile house that they could rent.

“She advised us to come to Orlando because the Spaniard is spoken here and the weather is beautiful,” said Freites, 37 years old. “We felt good and well received.”

Migration changed after the COVVI-19 pandemic

CBP data has captured the American destinations declared for 2.5 million migrants who crossed the border, including those such as the fibers that used the CBP One application, now disappeared, to make an appointment. The data covered the period when the Biden administration ended the COVVI-19 asylum restrictions when President Donald Trump began his second term and declared a national emergency at the border.

The CBP released millions of people in the United States on the border during the presidency of Biden to continue business in the US immigration court, raising the immigrant population to peaks of all time, because many people went to the United States by walking through the gap of Darién de Darién on the border of Colombia and Panama. This year, Border Patrol only published seven migrants from February to July, while Trump suspended the asylum system and plunged the army into a central role in the deterrent of illegal border passages.

Freites said that she had been tortured and raped in Colombia and that her 8 -month -old father and baby killed. The family asked for asylum and her and her husband obtained work permits.

She is now a cleaning lady in a Hotel in Orlando, a tourist destination with more than a dozen themed parks, including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and Seaworld. Her husband works in a factory nursery.

“We came here in search of freedom, to work. We do not like to receive anything for free,” said Freites, who asked that the AP identifies it by his second first name and the second name of the security of his mother in Colombia, which endured more than half a century of conflict. “We are good people.”

She, her husband and their three children – 16, 13 and 7 years old – live in a two -bedroom mobile house. Children frequent school and she frequents a Catholic church that offers a Mass in Spanish, the only language she speaks.

Orlando has absorbed new immigrants who came

Historically, the immigrant population of the center of Florida was mainly from Mexico and Central America, with a handful of Venezuelan professionals and owners of companies coming after the socialist Hugo Chávez became president in 1999. In 2022, more Venezuelans began to arrive, encouraged by a program created by the Biden administration which offered them a temporary legal path. This same program was extended for months later to Haitians and Cubans, and their presence has become more and more visible in the center of Florida. The state also has a large Colombian population.

Many immigrants came to Florida because they had friends and parents there.

In Orlando, they settled throughout the region, not only in certain districts. Companies addressing new arrivals have opened in commercial areas with Mexican and Puerto Rican stores. Venezuelans restaurants selling empanadas and arepas have opened in the same place as a Mexican supermarket which offers tacos and enchiladas. The churches began to offer more masses in Spanish and Creole, than Haitians speak.

As the population increased, apartments, shopping centers, offices and warehouses replaced many orange groves and forests that once surrounded Orlando.

The economy has developed as more people have arrived

New immigrants have found work in the booming construction industry, as well as in agriculture, transport, public services and manufacturing. Many work in restaurants and hotels and as a taxi driver. Some have launched their own business.

“It’s like a very dynamic community,” said Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, executive director of the Hope Community Center, a group that offers free services to the Center for Florida Immigrants. “It’s like:” I’m going to work hard and I’m going to fight for my American dream “, this spirit.”

The contributions of immigrants to the gross domestic product of Florida – all the goods and services produced in the state – increased from 24.3% in 2019 to 25.5% in 2023, according to an analysis of the US Immigration Council for Annual Investigations of the Census Bureau. The number of immigrants on the job market increased from 2.8 million to 3.1 million, or 26.5% to 27.4% of the global population. The figures include immigrants in the United States legally and illegally.

“Immigration has made this region better, more diversified,” said Laudi Campo, director of the Hispanic Federation of Florida. “Immigrants have brought an incredibly economical force and excellent labor in the region.”

Immigrants were looking for advice

Groups that help immigrants have also increased in size.

“We have received hundreds of calls per week,” said Gisselle Martinez, legal director of Orlando Center for Justice. “So many calls from people who say:” I just arrived, I don’t know anyone, I have no money yet, I have no work. Can you help me? “”

The center has created a program to welcome them. It went from 40 people in 2022 to 269 in 2023 and 524 in 2024, said Melissa Marantres, Managing Director.

In 2023, the Hispanic Federation launched a program to teach doctors, nurses and engineers from South America and Haiti how to prepare and dress for job interviews and how to answer questions in English. They also expanded their free English language program and offered another to help parents sail in the school system. In 2021, around 500 immigrants attended a fair that provided free dental, medical and legal services. By 2024, there were 2,500 participants.

Sousa-Lazaballet, the executive director of Hope, said that his group had increased from 6,000 people in 2019, to more than 20,000 in 2023 and 2024.

“People have been welcomed,” said Sousa-Lazaballet, Executive Director of Hope. “It was an incredible moment when people came, people settled because they have work permits. They could work. ”

Many are now afraid of being detained

After Trump took office, anxiety has spread in many immigrant communities. Florida, a state led by the Republicans, worked to help the Trump administration with its repression of immigration and promulgated laws aimed at illegal immigration. This includes a measure prohibiting people illegally living in the United States to enter the state that certain police officers applied after a judge arrested him.

Blanca, a 38 -year -old single mother from Mexico who crossed the border with her three children in July 2024, said that she had come to the center of Florida because four nephews already lived in the region told her that it was a peaceful place where people speak Spanish. The professor of mathematics, who asked for asylum in the United States, insisted to be identified by his first name only because she fears the expulsion.

In July 2025, immigration officials told him to go to their Orlando office before an hearing of the immigration court in October. There, they placed an electronic bracelet on its ankle to monitor it.

Because one of her friends was expelled after submitting a work permit application, she did not ask for one herself, she said. Blanca is paid under the table by cleaning and cooking for the neighbors. Her children ask her not to take them to school or since the police will not see her electronic bracelet and relax and hold her on the street.

“It’s frightening,” she said. “Of course, this is the case.”