Court tosses case challenging law banning ‘sanctuary cities’ in Florida

Published Apr. 17, 2023, 10:23 a.m. ET | Updated Apr. 17, 2023

25 Haitian migrants were taken into U.S. Border Patrol custody, near Virginia Key, Fla., Jan. 12, 2023. (Chief Patrol Agent Walter N. Slosar)
25 Haitian migrants were taken into U.S. Border Patrol custody, near Virginia Key, Fla., Jan. 12, 2023. (Chief Patrol Agent Walter N. Slosar)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (FLV) – A federal appeals court tossed out a case that challenged a 2019 immigration law that banned so-called “sanctuary cities” in Florida.

The appeal weighed if several organizations could sue the governor and attorney general of Florida to challenge a state law that requires local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

On Thursday, a three-judge panel in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling by a South Florida district judge that blocked parts of the law.

The panel of judges included Chief Judge William Pryor, Judge Stanley Marcus and Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle.

The lawsuit was filed in 2019 by the Florida Immigrant Coalition, the Family Action Network Movement, among other groups.

The state law provides that local officials shall support the enforcement of federal immigration law and cooperate with federal immigration initiatives and officials and that local officials may transport aliens subject to an immigration detainer to federal custody.

The organizations alleged that the provisions about support and cooperation were adopted with the “intent to discriminate based on race and national origin in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

They also maintained that the transport provision is “preempted by federal law.”

In the ruling, the judges said the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to challenge the law.

“This controversy is not justiciable because the organizations lack standing. The organizations have not established a cognizable injury and cannot spend their way into standing without an impending threat that the provisions will cause actual harm,” the judges wrote in the opinion.

The judges also said DeSantis and Moody should not have been defendants in the case.

“Moreover, the organizations’ alleged injury is neither traceable to the governor or attorney general nor redressable by a judgment against them because they do not enforce the challenged provisions,” the judges said.

After a previous district court trial, the court permanently enjoined the governor and attorney general from enforcing compliance with these provisions.

“Instead, local officials, based on the state law, must comply with federal immigration law. We vacate and remand with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction,” the judges said.

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