The Agricultural Worker Protection Act & Florida\u27s Migrant Worker: The Hands That Feed Florida

Since its enactment in 1982, courts have consistently misinterpreted the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (“AWPA”), and the Eleventh Circuit Courts are no exception to this misconstruction. Migrant workers are among the hardest-working and lowest-paid laborers in America, and they do not receive adequate legal protection. Congress, in enacting the AWPA, intended to make farmers and growers liable for abusing and breaching the AWPA. However, the judicial system has allowed them to create loopholes to escape liability. In order to break the cycle of abuse placed upon migrant workers, Florida must pass new legislation to reform and strengthen the AWPA and its legislatively intended purpose. If new legislation is not enacted, Florida will become a slave labor state because the lack of protection will ultimately turn back time and create an implicit form of slave labor