The decision leaves a lower court’s ruling in place. The Supreme Court did not explain its decision, and no dissents were filed.
Senate Bill 4C, approved by Florida’s legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) earlier this year, makes it a crime for illegal immigrants to enter the state if they had been deported or previously denied entry into the United States, regardless of their history or if they had become lawful residents.
Re-entering the state after being deported would have been deemed a felony. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier asked the Supreme Court to intervene last month and allow law enforcement. He said the state and its citizens will “remain disabled from combating the serious harms of illegal immigration for years as this litigation proceeds through the lower courts,” without intervention.
But the Supreme Court is leaving U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams’s preliminary injunction in place while a legal battle on the law continues.
Florida’s position is supported by 18 states, which have submitted an amicus brief backing the immigration law. The ACLU has filed a motion opposing the law, saying it would undermine federal immigration enforcement and “lead to an unmanageable patchwork of varying state criminal regulations of immigration.”
FLORIDA LEADS STATES IN CARRYING OUT TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION MISSION
The Justice Department has also filed a 33-page amicus brief backing Florida in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The Trump administration said the law does not “preempt” federal supremacy over immigration law, and that Florida’s S.B. 4C “is in harmony, not conflict, with federal law.”
However, the appeals court declined to pause the injunction. The ACLU said in a court filing that several other states have tried to pass similar legislation, but all remain blocked in the courts.
