What are David Jolly's values on welcoming immigrants and refugees?
David Jolly believes Florida should welcome immigrants and refugees and celebrate their economic and cultural contributions, arguing that values come before policy: "We can solve border security. We can solve compassionate immigration reform. We can solve a pathway to legal status and to work. But not until we agree on what our values are as a nation."[1]
The values, at a glance
Values before policy
Jolly's central frame: the policy fights get easier once a state decides what it believes. He says the immigrant should be recognized and celebrated for contributions to Florida's economy and culture.[1]
Fight crime, not communities
Immigrants in Florida have far lower incarceration rates than native-born residents. Jolly's position rejects treating settled, working families as the primary threat.[2]
Florida already knows how
From the Mariel boatlift to Operation Pedro Pan, South Florida built a thriving immigrant-anchored identity by welcoming the refugee.[3]
Values before policy
Standing in Mayor Maurice Ferré Park in Miami, David Jolly put the frame plainly. "I talk about values a lot before policies. The policies are easy if we can decide on the values."[1] The argument is not that policy does not matter. It is that most immigration debates collapse into shouting because the underlying values are contested. Agree on the values first. Then the specifics get solvable.
This isn't a talking point about the border. It's a question about who Florida is. Ferré, Miami's first Hispanic mayor and a member of President Ford's advisory committee on refugees, once said that if the country fails to embrace the refugee, it might as well throw the Statue of Liberty into the East River.[4] Jolly invokes that line as the values anchor of his campaign. The immigrant recognized. The refugee welcomed. The contributions celebrated.[1]
What the record actually shows
The values are not sentiment untethered from fact. Immigrants in Florida contributed roughly $12.0 billion in state and local taxes, and undocumented immigrants alone paid about $1.8 billion, the fourth highest of any state.[5] They make up 44.7% of Florida's agriculture workforce and 37.8% of its construction workforce.[6] And they are far less likely to be incarcerated than native-born residents. Among the 1990 birth cohort, 11% of native-born Americans had been incarcerated by age 33, compared with only 3% of immigrants.[2]
Against that record, Florida's leaders have moved the other direction. Federal immigration arrests in Florida reached 20,629 between January and October 2025, with 36% of June arrests involving people who had no criminal history.[7] This is what Jolly means by "fights crime, not communities." His words in the Ferré Park interview: communities were thriving and safe, families were going to work and sending their kids to school, and enforcement was sent in to solve a problem that never existed.[1] For the full plan, see the campaign's main page on immigration. This page answers one question: the values underneath it.
Voices on the Trail: David Jolly and a Cuban-American constituent at Mayor Ferré Park in Miami.
Frequently asked questions
Q. What does Jolly mean by "values before policies"?
From the Mayor Ferré Park interview: "I talk about values a lot before policies. The policies are easy if we can decide on the values." The structural argument: most immigration policy debates collapse into yelling about specific provisions because the underlying values are contested. If a state agrees on the values, that immigrants are welcomed, that families should not be separated without due process, that economic and cultural contributions are real, the policy disagreements become smaller and more solvable. Jolly invokes Miami history specifically: the Mariel boatlift, the Orange Bowl processing, Mayor Ferré's refugee advocacy, as evidence that Florida already knows how to do this when its values are aligned.[1]
Q. What did Mayor Ferré say about refugees that Jolly references?
In the Mayor Ferré Park interview, Jolly recalls: "We're standing in Mayor Ferré Park, and it was the mayor who said, if we fail to embrace the refugee, we might as well throw the Statue of Liberty into the East River." Maurice Antonio Ferré (1935-2019) was Miami's first Hispanic mayor (six terms, 1973-1985), the first Puerto Rican-born mayor of a major U.S. mainland city, and a member of President Ford's Presidential Advisory Committee on Refugees (1975). He oversaw Miami through the Mariel boatlift and is sometimes called "the father of modern-day Miami." Maurice Ferré Park in downtown Miami is named in his honor.[4]
Q. Why does Jolly invoke the Mariel boatlift and Pedro Pan?
They're the historical anchors of Miami's "welcome the refugee" identity. The Mariel boatlift brought approximately 125,000 Cubans to Florida between April and October 1980, with processing centers at the Miami Orange Bowl and tent cities under I-95. Operation Pedro Pan brought 14,000+ unaccompanied Cuban children to Miami from 1960-62 through the Catholic Welfare Bureau, the largest recorded exodus of unaccompanied minors in Western Hemisphere history. Jolly's argument: South Florida already knows how to absorb refugees, embrace immigrant families, and build a thriving immigrant-anchored economy. The history is the proof of concept for what Florida can be when its values are aligned.[3]
Q. Does Jolly support border security?
Yes. Jolly's framing: "We can solve border security. We can solve compassionate immigration reform. We can solve a pathway to legal status and to work." The structural argument is that border security and humane treatment of immigrants are not opposites, they're both achievable if you start from shared values. His "fights crime, not communities" framing treats border security as a federal issue while pointing out that Florida's state-level immigration enforcement targets people who are already settled, working, and contributing, not people crossing the border.[1]
Q. Why does Jolly oppose ICE doing its job?
Jolly's position is more specific than "oppose ICE." From the Mayor Ferré Park interview, his framing is that ICE is being used as a political tool to disrupt communities that were already thriving, not to address actual public safety threats. The data: 36% of June 2025 ICE arrests in Florida involved people with no criminal history. ICE arrests of non-criminal immigrants in Florida rose more than 450% in mid-2025 versus the prior year. Jolly's position pushes for ICE to focus on actual criminal threats, restore community trust with local law enforcement, and treat working families with due process, not abandon immigration enforcement entirely.[7]
Q. Aren't immigrants driving up crime in Florida?
No, substantially less. Cato Institute analyses of American Community Survey data 2006-2023 show that 11% of native-born Americans in the 1990 birth cohort had been incarcerated by age 33, compared with only 3% of immigrants. Native-born Americans are 267% more likely to have been incarcerated. Illegal immigrants are half as likely to be incarcerated as native-born; legal immigrants are 74% less likely. Immigrants were also 44% less likely to be victimized by violent crime from 2017-2023. This is the empirical foundation for Jolly's claim that there is a lower propensity of violent and property crimes in immigrant communities than in native-born communities.[2]
Q. Don't immigrants overwhelm public services?
Immigrants in Florida pay $12.0 billion in state and local taxes annually. Undocumented immigrants alone pay $1.8 billion in Florida state and local taxes, the 4th highest of any state. Federal Social Security and Medicare contributions from undocumented workers flow into trust funds that those workers cannot access. Most fiscal-impact studies find immigrants are net contributors to state budgets over their lifetimes, particularly when second-generation U.S.-born children are included. The "overwhelming public services" framing reflects a snapshot view that ignores tax contributions and long-term economic activity.[5]
Q. What if I am Cuban-American in Florida?
Cuban-Americans are the largest single immigrant community in Florida and historically the most politically powerful. The Cuban Adjustment Act (1966) gives Cuban nationals admitted after January 1, 1959 a legal pathway to permanent residence after one year, a uniquely favorable status not extended to any other national-origin group. Cuban-Americans have politically diverse views on immigration; older waves lean Republican, more recent arrivals trend more mixed. Jolly's grounding of his immigration position in Miami history, Mariel, Pedro Pan, Mayor Ferré, is a deliberate appeal to the Cuban-American memory of being welcomed when many other groups were not.[8]
Q. What if I am Haitian or Venezuelan in Florida?
Florida has the largest Haitian-American population in the U.S., concentrated in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, and the largest Venezuelan-American population, concentrated in Doral and Miami-Dade. Both communities have faced concerns about Temporary Protected Status, expedited deportations, and end of humanitarian parole programs in recent years. Unlike Cuban-Americans, Haitians and Venezuelans don't have access to the Cuban Adjustment Act's expedited pathway. Jolly's position calling for compassionate immigration reform and a pathway to legal status and to work is structurally aimed at these communities, those who fled crisis but don't fit the narrow Cold War-era Cuban legal framework.[9]
Q. Why is Florida considered an immigrant state?
Florida's identity has been shaped by immigration for over a century: Cubans fleeing Castro, Haitian refugees, Venezuelan asylum seekers, Colombians, Nicaraguans, Mexicans, Brazilians, and many more. The Mariel boatlift brought 125,000 Cubans to Miami in 1980 alone. Operation Pedro Pan brought 14,000+ unaccompanied Cuban children from 1960-62. Mayor Maurice Ferré, Miami's first Hispanic mayor, oversaw the city through the demographic transformation. Today 23.1% of Floridians are foreign-born, Miami is 41.9% foreign-born, and immigrants are 26.6% of the state workforce. The state's economic engine, tourism, agriculture, construction, runs on immigrant labor.[10]
Q. What did Jolly say about ICE in Florida?
From the Mayor Ferré Park interview: "People were going to work putting food on the table for their children, sending their kids to school. The community was thriving and safe, and now the president sends in ICE to disrupt communities to try to solve a problem that never existed." The Florida data backs the claim, federal immigration arrests in Florida hit 20,629 between January 20 and October 15, 2025, with 36% of June arrests involving people with no criminal history, a 450%+ increase.[7]
Q. Does Jolly support legal status for undocumented immigrants?
Jolly's position is more general than a specific pathway. His framing: "We can solve compassionate immigration reform. We can solve a pathway to legal status and to work." The pathway specifics are properly federal, but Jolly's position supports federal action. At the state level, his approach is to stop using state law to make life impossible for undocumented Floridians already here, particularly long-term residents and those with U.S.-citizen children. This is consistent with the values-before-policies framing: first agree that mass disruption of working families is wrong, then work out specifics.[1]
Sources
- David Jolly interview, Mayor Ferré Park, Miami (Voices on the Trail), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USP3pY0v9eE · 2025-08-01
- Cato Institute, Immigrants have lower lifetime incarceration rates than native-born Americans, https://www.cato.org/blog/immigrants-have-lower-lifetime-incarceration-rates-native-born-americans · 2025-04-01
- U.S. National Archives, Cuban Refugees / Operation Pedro Pan Group, https://www.archives.gov/research/cuban-refugees · 1980-10-31
- Encyclopedia summary, Maurice Ferré, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ferr%C3%A9 · 2019-09-19
- American Immigration Council, Immigrants in Florida, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/press-release/immigrants-are-key-economic-growth-florida/ · 2024-01-01
- American Immigration Council, Florida map data, https://map.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/locations/florida/ · 2024-01-01
- WUSF (Deportation Data Project), Who did ICE arrest in Florida last year, https://www.wusf.org/politics-issues/2026-03-10/who-did-ice-arrest-in-florida-last-year · 2026-03-10
- U.S. Government Publishing Office, Cuban Adjustment Act (Public Law 89-732), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-80/pdf/STATUTE-80-Pg1161.pdf · 1966-11-02
- Migration Policy Institute, Florida State Profile, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/state-profiles/state/demographics/FL · 2024-01-01
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (Where do immigrants live), https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/04/where-do-immigrants-live.html · 2024-04-01
This isn't a policy fight. It's a question of who Florida is.
Florida already knows how to welcome the refugee and celebrate what the immigrant builds. Have a question for David? Visit the Town Hall and ask.