On Tuesday, a judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida struck down a portion of a Florida immigration law as unconstitutional and declared the measures within to be racially motivated.
According to a 110-page ruling by Judge Beth Bloom, sanctuary policies are banned by local governments and local law enforcement must work with federal immigration authorities. According to Bloom, these portions had discriminatory motives and it had not been demonstrated that the purposes of these portions were to reduce crime. The “totality of the relevant facts present significant evidence, both direct and circumstantial, of the Legislature’s discriminatory motives in enacting SB 168,” Bloom wrote.
“The court finds that plaintiffs have proven by a preponderance of the evidence that SB 168 has discriminatory or disparate effects on racial and ethnic minorities, and these discriminatory effects were both foreseeable and known to the Legislature at the time of SB 168’s enactment.”
Bloom also cited numerous communications between Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, a group opposed to immigration, and the office of state Senator Joe Gruter. Senate Bill 168 was sponsored by Gruter. Bloom declared that “allowing anti-immigrant hate groups that overtly promote xenophobic, nationalist, racist ideologies to be intimately involved in a bill’s legislative process is a significant departure from procedural norms.” “On many occasions during the 2019 legislative session, [Floridians for immigration Enforcement’s] racial animus and discriminatory intent were made apparent to Senator Gruters and his staff but were ignored.” “This involvement strongly suggests that the Legislature enacted SB 168 to promote and ratify the racist views of these advocacy groups.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the state will appeal Bloom’s ruling, stating that DeSantis’ office “disagree[s] with the ruling of the Obama judge and [they] expect to win on appeal.”