An American Immigration Council attorney who sued Gov. Ron DeSantis says Florida’s Senate Bill 1718 is vague and could lead to discrimination in its enforcement.
“It’s unclear what it means when it says inspected by immigration authorities,” said Kate Melloy Goettel, legal director of litigation at the American Immigration Council. “What’s surprising is it doesn't give fair notice of who can and cannot be transported. It's really concerning because when you have a law that's vague, regardless of what type of law it is, that is a recipe for arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement by law enforcement.”
In addition to DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, Florida Statewide Prosecutor Nicholas B. Cox and the attorneys general for all 20 Florida Judicial Circuits are named as defendants.
Under Section 10 of Senate Bill 1718, which became effective July 1, the transportation of individuals who may have entered the country unlawfully and have not been inspected by the federal government is now illegal.
“Broadly speaking, Congress does not prohibit the transporting of someone who hasn't been inspected so the Florida legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis in enacting this into law took over the job of the federal government in terms of writing immigration law and policy and making those decisions about who immigration laws are going to be enforced against,” Goettel told the Florida Record.
The American Immigration Council is among the plaintiffs that sued DeSantis in the Miami Division of the Southern District of Florida federal court alleging that the law is unconstitutional.
“Many people who entered the country in violation of federal immigration law have since sought or obtained immigration relief or are now otherwise lawfully present within the United States, but may not have been “inspected” in the relevant sense,” wrote Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Attorney Anne Janet Hernandez Anderson in the July 17 complaint. “The statute does not define the term “inspected” and does not explain what it means to be inspected “since” entry.”
The plaintiffs, which also include the Farmworker Association of Florida, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida, and Americans for Immigrant Justice, seek injunctive and declaratory relief.
"Section 10 is also hopelessly vague and incoherent because Floridians and travelers into Florida have no way to know which people fall within its terms—particularly, who will be considered to not have “been inspected by the Federal Government since his or her unlawful entry," the complaint states. "That category does not appear anywhere in federal law and is undefined in Section 10."