The Farmworker Association started their reply to Florida’s opposition to their request for a preliminary injunction against Senate Bill 1718 by reminding the court that multiple plaintiffs canceled specific plans to visit family in other states because of Section 10.
Section 10 of Senate Bill 1718, which became effective July 1, criminalizes the transport of individuals who may have entered the country unlawfully and have not been inspected by the federal government.
“Defendants bizarrely suggest that Section 10 only 'indirectly discourage[s]' undocumented immigrants 'from entering the State,'" wrote attorney Anne Janet Hernandez Anderson in FWA's Sept. 22 reply. “But Section 10 flatly prohibits their transport into the state, and criminalizes providing it.”
The Farmworker Association sued the state over Section 10 of Senate Bill 1718, which became effective July 1, on July 17 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District alleging that the law is unconstitutional.
The state argued in their brief in opposition to the preliminary injunction that the plaintiffs do not have standing to sue.
“Even assuming the Farmworker Association alleges some injury, its vague allegations fail to establish one that is 'imminent,'" wrote James H. Percival, chief of staff in the Florida Attorney General’s office in the Sept. 15 brief. “The Association offers no “description of concrete plans” or “specification” of when its members will drive uninspected persons into the State. Instead, the Farmworker Association describes past conduct and then asserts that each member “fears” that similar conduct in the future will “expose” the member to felony charges.”
Now that the litigants have argued, U.S. District Judge Roy Altman is expected to rule on whether to grant the preliminary injunction or not.
Defendants named in the lawsuit include Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, Florida Statewide Prosecutor Nicholas B. Cox and the attorneys general for all 20 Florida Judicial Circuits.
“It criminalizes transporting someone who hasn't been inspected by immigration authorities and that is not necessarily an easy thing for a law enforcement official to figure out whether someone has or has not been inspected,” said Kate Melloy Goettel, legal director of litigation at the American Immigration Council. “The mechanism for determining who this law applies to is really vague and could lead to just indiscriminate enforcement of the law.”
In addition to the Farmworkers Association, the American Immigration Council, the ACLU Foundation of Florida and the Southern Poverty Law Center are plaintiffs.
“This section we are suing under is just one portion of the broader 1718 bill that is creating fear amongst immigrant communities throughout Florida and, more specifically what's at stake here with this provision is that people could easily be arrested and detained and put in jail for transporting someone across state lines,” Goettel told the Florida Record.