Children as young as 14 would be allowed to work overnight shifts under new laws being passed in the US state of Florida.

The state’s legislature on Tuesday advanced a bill – Senate Bill 918 – that will loosen child labour laws, allowing teenagers to work overnight jobs on school days. State law currently prevents them from working earlier than 6.30am or later than 11:00pm.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis supports the law change, and linked it to the loss of migrant workers in the wake of nationwide crackdowns on undocumented labour.

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In a panel discussion with US border “czar” Tom Homan, a senior official performing the duties of the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), DeSantis said: “Yes, we had people that left because of those rules, but you’ve also been able to hire other people. And what’s wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now?”

He added: “Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when you know, teenagers used to work at these resorts? College students should be able to do this stuff.”

The changes to Florida’s child labour laws would also end guaranteed meal breaks for 16- and 17-year-old workers and include relaxing working time restrictions on teenagers aged 14-15 if they are home-schooled.

On Tuesday (25 March) the bill passed through the senate’s Commerce and Tourism committee and will face two more committee votes before being voted on by the full Florida senate.

Several states have rolled back child labour laws in recent years. In 2023, Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill that made it easier for companies to hire children without getting consent from their parents.

Last week, Homan’s ICE department arrested 370 “undocumented migrants” in the Boston area. Many of these, he admitted, were “collateral arrests” and were not guilty of any crime. He told Fox News that the “majority of them were criminals. We had, you know, numerous collateral arrests. And I’ve said it before … collateral arrests are going to be … people who aren’t criminals that are found when we’re looking for the criminal, are going to be taken into custody.”

 

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