Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) has formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and allow the state to immediately enforce its controversial new immigration law, S.B. 4-C, while ongoing appeals play out in lower courts.
The emergency application, filed Monday, underscores Florida’s urgency in addressing what it describes as the “havoc” wreaked by illegal immigration.
S.B. 4-C criminalizes individuals who enter Florida after having arrived in the U.S. illegally and evading immigration authorities, making it a state crime. “Illegal immigration continues to wreak havoc in the State while that law cannot be enforced,” Uthmeier’s office stated in the application to the Supreme Court.
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The state argues that without the High Court’s intervention, Florida and its citizens will remain “disabled from combatting the serious harms of illegal immigration for years as this litigation proceeds through the lower courts.”
The law has faced immediate legal challenges since its passage. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, an appointee of former President Obama, issued an indefinite block on its enforcement, concluding that the statute is likely preempted by federal immigration law and therefore unconstitutional.
This ruling was subsequently upheld by a three-judge panel on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which declined to lift the block as Florida’s appeal progresses.
Florida, however, maintains that its law is carefully crafted to avoid any conflict with federal authority. “Nothing in SB 4-C poses a conflict with federal law. Just the opposite, Florida’s law scrupulously tracks federal law,” Uthmeier’s office asserted in court filings, also arguing it does not violate the Dormant Commerce Clause as it is “unrelated to economic protectionism.”
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The lawsuit challenging S.B. 4-C was brought by two anonymous individuals residing in Florida illegally, alongside the Florida Immigrant Coalition and the Farmworker Association of Florida. The American Civil Liberties Union, representing the plaintiffs, has so far declined to comment on Florida’s Supreme Court appeal.
This appeal adds to an already crowded emergency docket for the Supreme Court. The justices are currently considering six pending emergency applications from the Trump administration related to birthright citizenship and deportation policies, as well as requests for intervention from two death row inmates in Florida and Mississippi.
Florida’s move comes after the Supreme Court last year allowed a Texas law to take effect, which also makes it a state crime to illegally cross the Mexican border into the state. That decision saw the court refuse the Biden administration’s request for an emergency order blocking the Texas law on preemption grounds, potentially signaling a receptive ear to states asserting more direct roles in immigration enforcement.
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