Hopefully, Florida will be safe blue for a very long time. Trends support that may very well come to pass. Trump and the GOP have made Puerto Ricans suffer needlessly on the island, along with suffering of the diaspora in Florida who have worried about loved ones and their homeland for 2 months now.
MIAMI - The exodus of Puerto Ricans to Florida following Hurricane Maria has reached a whopping 200,000 in just over two months, obliterating initial conservative estimates that had put the number at 100,000.
Maria Teresa Rosado, 37, and her husband Luis Flores, 33, arrived in Miami over the weekend to start rebuilding their lives. Power has not yet arrived to their house in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico.
Wednesday, the couple was at the hurricane relief center at Miami International Airport, which was set up by the state to make it easier for those arriving to get settled.
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According to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, over 204,000 people from Puerto Rico have landed at airports in Miami, Orlando, and Tampa since October 3rd.
A total of 7,756 Puerto Rican students have enrolled in Florida public schools during the same period. The largest enrollments are in Orange and Osceola Counties in Central Florida, which has the heaviest concentration of Puerto Ricans. Many universities in the state have also waived out-of-state tuition fees for Puerto Rican students.
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The scale of migration is larger than any other in Puerto Ricans history. "Puerto Rico will be seen by historians as before and after Maria," said Luis Martinez Fernandez, a History professor at the University of Central Florida, calling it "a watershed moment."
Since the initial aftermath of the hurricane, Fernandez has predicted a total of 500,000 to 750,000 Puerto Ricans would leave the island in a four-year period.
"As it turns out, 500,000 is now the low-end estimate for a five year period. It appears that it will be closer to 750,000," according to Fernandez.
He said the exodus is unfolding along several interconnected waves. First, the wave that was underway prior to the storm, which had reached a level of around 80,000 per year. Since the hurricane, a second wave has added to what was already a spike.
A larger and longer-term wave will continue over the next few years, he said. Consequently, an already deeply indebted government will continue to see a sharp drop in the tax base, which reduces its ability to provide services and pay its debt. "In that sense, Maria was a perfect storm of destruction and economic ruin," Fernandez said.
The population of Puerto Ricans in Florida has swelled from 479,000 in 2000 to over one million now. Many of those were originally fleeing the island's economic recession.
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