SCOTUS denies Florida AG request to enforce controversial immigration law

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected Florida’s emergency bid to let it enforce a controversial immigration law that would ban illegal immigrants from entering the state — leaving in place a lower court’s pause on immediately enforcing the measure.

Justices on the 6-3 conservative majority Supreme Court did not explain their decision, and there were no noted dissents.

At issue was Florida’s Senate Bill 4C, which would make it a crime for undocumented migrants to enter the state if they had been previously deported or previously denied entry into the U.S., regardless of their history, and even if they had since gained lawful status in the country.

Re-entering the state after being deported would be considered a felony under S.B. 4C, and individuals suspected of violating the law would be jailed, without bond, until their cases can be heard in court.

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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier asked the Supreme Court late last month to intervene and block a preliminary injunction handed down in April by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams. 

Uthmeier argued that, barring intervention from the Supreme Court, 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.”

Its position was backed by 18 states, which submitted an amicus brief to the high court backing the law in question. The ACLU, which filed a motion opposing the law, argued in a motion of its own that these laws risk undermining federal immigration enforcement and underscore that a stay of Florida’s law would “lead to an unmanageable patchwork of varying state criminal regulations of immigration.”

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The Justice Department, for its part, also weighed in, filing a 33-page amicus brief on behalf of Florida to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

Trump administration officials told the appeals court that the law in question did not “preempt” federal supremacy over existing immigration law, arguing that Florida’s S.B. 4C “is in harmony, not conflict, with federal law.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ultimately declined to pause the lower court’s injunction, clearing the way for the case to be appealed to the Supreme Court.

Florida’s attorney general included the administration’s amicus brief in a supplemental motion filed to the high court, though the justices did not make note of it in denying the state’s request.

Florida is not the first state to try to stand up controversial legislation blocking illegal immigrants from entering the state, according to the ACLU.

At least six others, including Texas, Iowa, and Oklahoma, have attempted to pass similar legislation in recent years, it said in a court filing of its own. All remain blocked by the federal courts.