Miami, Aug 8 (EFE).- Several organizations in favor of civil rights presented a motion on Tuesday to block a section of Florida’s immigration law SB 1718, considering that it is “unconstitutional, xenophobic” and “criminalizes” the immigrant community.
The motion seeking an injunction blocking section 10 of SB 1718 adds to a lawsuit filed last July by various legal groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its chapter. of Florida, Americans for Immigrant Justice and American Immigration Council.
In this lawsuit, the civil rights organizations argue that SB 1718 “unconstitutionally criminalizes the act of transporting a broad category of immigrants to Florida” who may have entered the United States illegally and have not been “inspected” by the federal government.
A category that “puts thousands of Floridians and out-of-state residents, both citizens and noncitizens, at risk of being arrested, charged, and prosecuted” for the “felony” of transporting people to Florida under “vaguely defined” terminology. .
The case was brought on behalf of the Florida Farm Workers Association and various affected individuals, including US citizens and undocumented drivers and passengers who regularly travel in and out of Florida, against the state’s Governor, Republican Ron DeSantis.
Also included in the lawsuit are Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody; State Attorney Nicholas B. Cox and the offices of the State Attorney General for Florida’s 20 judicial circuits.
In their motion, the plaintiffs ask the court to block Section 10 in its entirety because it is an “unconstitutional state law regulating federal immigration.”
For the plaintiffs, it is imperative that the court prevent this “unconstitutional law from causing irreparable harm to the plaintiffs and to countless other families, organizations, and communities.”
“Nearly one million Floridians live in mixed-status immigrant families where undocumented parents, spouses and children share the same home as U.S. citizens and ‘lawful permanent residents,'” AJ Hernandez Anderson, Southern’s lead attorney, said in a statement. Poverty Law Center.
Hernández clearly explained that this “draconian anti-immigrant law” puts entire communities at risk when family members “are afraid to take their loved ones for medical care, attend church events, meet the requirements of the immigration court or harvest Florida’s crops.
“This law must be stopped. We are asking the court to stop the application of this obviously unconstitutional and hateful law while we go through the judicial process,” the lawyer stressed. EFE
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