Immigrant-advocacy groups Wednesday filed a potential class-action lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a new Florida law aimed at cracking down on undocumented immigrants.
The Florida Immigrant Coalition, the Farmworker Association of Florida and two individual plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in federal court in Miami. It challenges a law (SB 4-C) that passed during a February special legislative session.
The law, in part, created state crimes for undocumented immigrants who enter or re-enter Florida. The lawsuit contends the law violated what is known as the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution because immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility.
“Under this novel system, the state of Florida has created its own immigration crimes, completely outside the federal immigration system,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Immigrant Justice wrote.
“State police will arrest noncitizens for these entry and re-entry crimes; state prosecutors will bring charges in state courts; and state judges will determine guilt and impose sentences. The federal government has no control over, nor any role at all in, these arrests and prosecutions.”
The lawsuit also alleges a violation of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause because it “impermissibly regulates people’s entry into Florida, and it imposes unacceptable burdens on interstate and foreign commerce.”
The February special session came as Republican lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis said they were trying to help carry out President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. The law targeted in the lawsuit was one of two immigration bills passed during the special session.
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