After Paola Freites was allowed into the U.S. in 2024, she and her husband settled in Florida, drawn by heat temperatures, a big Latino group and the convenience of discovering employment and housing.
They have been amongst a whole bunch of hundreds of immigrants who got here to the state in recent times as immigration surged underneath former President Joe Biden.
No state has been extra affected by the rise in immigrants than Florida, in accordance with inner authorities knowledge obtained by The Related Press. Florida had 1,271 migrants who arrived from Could 2023 to January 2025 for each 100,000 residents, adopted by New York, California, Texas and Illinois.
The info from U.S. Customs and Border Safety, which should confirm addresses of everybody who’s allowed to enter the U.S. and keep to pursue an immigration case, exhibits Miami was probably the most affected metropolitan space within the U.S. with 2,191 new migrants for each 100,000 residents. Orlando ranked tenth with 1,499 new migrants for each 100,000 residents. Tampa ranked seventeenth, and Fort Myers was thirtieth.
Freites and her husband, who had fled violence in Colombia with their three youngsters, moved to Apopka, an agricultural metropolis close to Orlando, the place immigrants might discover cheaper housing than in Miami as they unfold all through a group that already had giant populations of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Her sister-in-law owned a cell house that they might hire.
“She advised us to come to Orlando because Spanish is spoken here and the weather is good,” Freites, 37, mentioned. “We felt good and welcomed.”
Migration modified after the COVID-19 pandemic
The CBP knowledge captured the said U.S. locations for two.5 million migrants who crossed the border, together with these like Freites who used the now-defunct CBP One app to make an appointment for entry. The info lined the interval when the Biden administration ended COVID-19 restrictions on asylum to when President Donald Trump started his second time period and declared a nationwide emergency on the border.
CBP launched thousands and thousands of individuals within the U.S. on the border throughout Biden’s presidency to pursue instances in U.S. immigration court docket, lifting the immigrant inhabitants to all-time highs as many individuals made their technique to the U.S. by strolling via the once-impenetrable Darién Hole on the border of Colombia and Panama. This yr, the Border Patrol launched solely seven migrants from February via July, as Trump suspended the asylum system and thrust the navy right into a central function in deterring unlawful border crossings.
Freites mentioned she was tortured and raped in Colombia and her father and 8-month-old child killed. The household requested asylum, and she or he and her husband obtained work permits.
She is now a housekeeper at a lodge in Orlando, a vacationer vacation spot with greater than a dozen theme parks, together with Walt Disney World, Common Orlando and SeaWorld. Her husband works at a plant nursery.
“We came here looking for freedom, to work. We don’t like to be given anything for free,” mentioned Freites, who requested that the AP determine her by her center identify and second final identify for concern of her mom’s security in Colombia, which has endured greater than a half century of battle. “We are good people.”
She, her husband and their three youngsters — ages 16, 13 and seven — dwell in a two-bedroom cell house. The kids attend faculty and she or he attends a Catholic church that provides Mass in Spanish, the one language she speaks.
Orlando absorbed new immigrants who got here
Traditionally, Central Florida’s immigrant inhabitants was primarily from Mexico and Central America, with a handful of Venezuelan professionals and enterprise homeowners coming after socialist Hugo Chávez grew to become president in 1999. In 2022, extra Venezuelans started to reach, inspired by a program created by the Biden administration that provided them a brief authorized pathway. That very same program was prolonged months later to Haitians and Cubans, and their presence grew to become more and more seen in Central Florida. The state additionally has a big Colombian inhabitants.
Many immigrants got here to Florida as a result of they’d associates and relations there.
In Orlando, they settled all through the realm, not simply sure neighborhoods. Companies catering to newer arrivals opened in procuring areas with Mexican and Puerto Rican outlets. Venezuelan eating places promoting empanadas and arepas opened in the identical plaza as a Mexican grocery store that provides tacos and enchiladas. Church buildings started providing extra Lots in Spanish and in Creole, which Haitians communicate.
Because the inhabitants elevated, flats, procuring facilities, workplaces and warehouses changed most of the orange groves and forests that after surrounded Orlando.
The economic system grew as extra individuals arrived
New immigrants discovered work within the booming development business, in addition to in agriculture, transportation, utilities and manufacturing. Many work in eating places and motels and as taxi drivers. Some began their very own companies.
“It’s just like a very vibrant community,” mentioned Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, government director at Hope CommUnity Middle, a gaggle that provides free companies to the immigrant group in Central Florida. “It’s like, ‘I’m going to work hard and I’m going to fight for my American dream,’ that spirit.”
Immigrants’ contributions to Florida’s gross home product — all items and companies produced within the state — rose from 24.3% in 2019 to 25.5% in 2023, in accordance with an American Immigration Council evaluation of the Census Bureau’s annual surveys. The variety of immigrants within the workforce elevated from 2.8 million to three.1 million, or 26.5% to 27.4% of the general inhabitants. The figures embody immigrants within the U.S. legally and illegally.
“Immigration has made this area better, more diverse,” mentioned Laudi Campo, director of the Hispanic Federation in Florida. “Immigrants have brought an amazingly economic force and great workforce to the area.”
Immigrants appeared for recommendation
Teams that assist immigrants additionally elevated in measurement.
“We got hundreds of calls a week,” mentioned Gisselle Martinez, authorized director on the Orlando Middle for Justice. “So many calls of people saying ‘I just arrived, I don’t know anybody, I don’t have money yet, I don’t have a job yet. Can you help me?’”
The middle created a program to welcome them. It grew from serving 40 individuals in 2022 to 269 in 2023 and 524 in 2024, Melissa Marantes, the chief director, mentioned.
In 2023, the Hispanic Federation launched a program to show medical doctors, nurses, and engineers from South America and Haiti the best way to put together and gown for job interviews and the best way to reply questions in English. Additionally they expanded their free English language program and provided one other to assist mother and father navigate the college system. In 2021, about 500 immigrants attended a good that offered free dental, medical, and authorized companies. By 2024, there have been 2,500 attendees.
Sousa-Lazaballet, the chief director at Hope, mentioned his group went from serving 6,000 individuals in 2019, to greater than 20,000 in 2023 and 2024.
“People were welcomed,” Sousa-Lazaballet, the chief director at Hope, mentioned. “It was an incredible moment, when people were coming, people were settling because they have work permits. They could work.”
Many now concern being detained
After Trump took workplace, nervousness unfold via many immigrant communities. Florida, a Republican-led state, has labored to assist the Trump administration with its immigration crackdown and has enacted legal guidelines concentrating on unlawful immigration. That features a measure banning individuals dwelling within the U.S. illegally from getting into the state that some legislation enforcement officers enforced after a decide halted it.
Blanca, a 38-year-old single mom from Mexico who crossed the border along with her three youngsters in July 2024, mentioned she got here to Central Florida as a result of 4 nephews who have been already dwelling within the space instructed her it was a peaceable place the place individuals communicate Spanish. The maths instructor, who has requested asylum within the U.S. insisted on being recognized by her first identify solely as a result of she fears deportation.
In July 2025, immigration officers instructed her to go to their Orlando workplace forward of an October immigration court docket listening to. There, they positioned an digital bracelet on her ankle to watch her.
As a result of a pal of hers was deported after submitting a piece allow request, she has not requested for one herself, she mentioned. Blanca will get paid underneath the desk by cleansing and cooking for neighbors. Her youngsters ask her to not take them to or from faculty for concern that the police will see her digital bracelet and cease and detain her on the road.
“It’s scary,” she mentioned. “Of course it is.”
