Supreme Court keeps block on law that allows Florida to prosecute unauthorized immigrants who enter state
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday left intact a judge’s preliminary injunction blocking a Florida law that makes it a crime for immigrants to enter the state if they are in the country illegally.
In its July 9 order, the Supreme Court refused to stay the preliminary injunction during a continued challenge to the law known as Florida Senate Bill 4-C.
A first conviction for illegal entry into Florida under the law is a misdemeanor with a mandatory minimum sentence of nine months in prison. The mandatory prison term escalates with each subsequent conviction. A conviction for illegal entry after deportation or a removal order is a felony with a mandatory minimum term of one year and a day in prison. The law applies to those who are at least 18 years old.
The plaintiffs challenging the law include people at risk of arrest, the Farmworker Association of Florida and the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams of the Southern District of Florida granted the preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the law in an April 29 opinion. She said the Florida law is likely preempted by federal immigration law and likely discriminates against interstate commerce in violation of the commerce clause. She also provisionally certified a class action lawsuit.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Atlanta declined to stay the preliminary injunction in a June 6 opinion.
Florida had argued that Williams’ ruling “inflicts irreparable harm on Florida and its ability to protect its citizens from the deluge of illegal immigration.” The Florida law “purposefully tracks federal law to a tee” and is in compliance with—rather than in contradiction of—federal law, the state argued.
According to a July 9 press release by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Supreme Court’s refusal to let Florida enforce the law “extends a long and unbroken string of defeats that the courts have dealt to SB 4-C and related laws in Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho and Iowa.”
Publications with coverage of the Supreme Court’s refusal to block the law include the New York Times, Reuters and SCOTUSblog.
The case is Uthmeier v. Florida Immigrant Coalition.
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