JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Following a judge’s decision to temporarily block Florida’s new immigration law, Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Monday he wasn’t surprised by the challenge, adding that the state has the right to hold people accountable.
On Friday, a U.S. district judge temporarily blocked SB 4C, a law that makes it a crime for people to enter the state illegally. Miami-based Judge Kathleen Williams issued a 14-page decision pointing to the federal government’s power to regulate immigration.
In a video posted on social media, DeSantis responded to the judge’s block.
“We totally anticipated this, we knew that they would go into a favorable forum and get a resolve, just as I know the Trump administration has certainly not been surprised at how the judiciary’s behave, but the reality is, we have a right, to be able, under our state constitution and our state police powers, to be able to hold people accountable,” DeSantis said in part.
Press play below to watch the full video
Another day, another activist federal judge trying to throw sand in the gears of immigration enforcement, this time in Florida... pic.twitter.com/wQsl3o8pCA
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) April 7, 2025
Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida and other pro-immigrant groups filed a lawsuit against SB 4C.
“A state law that would conflict with it is preempted. And so, that’s what the judge found that we’re likely to win on that argument, so she issued the preliminary injunction, which means all the defendants, which includes every state attorney and the attorney general, are prohibited from prosecuting under this law, so people should no longer be arrested or prosecuted while the preliminary injunction is in effect,” Director of Litigation at Americans for Immigrant Justice Paul Chavez said.
Chavez said generally, the states are prohibited from engaging in immigration enforcement or regulation because that’s the job of the federal government.
It’s only under rare circumstances or exceptions that the states will be enjoined from trying to enforce federal immigration law or create their own system.
“We don’t want 50 different states with different sets of laws. I mean, if we had a patchwork from state to state of different laws, nobody would know what to do, how to do it, they’d be under threat of criminal liability, which, of course, is the downside. You don’t want to be exposed to criminal liability for something for something like this,” Chavez said.
Chavez said that many of their plaintiffs are people who travel in and out of Florida, people that have been here for decades, people with no criminal background, or people that need to travel for work.
“The Farm Workers Association, for example, has members that actually travel with the crops, so they’re in and out of Florida depending upon the season, plaintiffs that have family in other in other states that want to go,” Chavez said.
A hearing was scheduled for April 18.
“The judge said, ‘Come to the hearing,’ and in 14 days, we’ll go to that hearing, will argue whether or not the preliminary injunction should stay in place,” he said.
In a broad perspective, Chavez said there is a reason why immigration enforcement is so complex and within the federal government and not local law enforcement.
“It creates a big gap between the immigrant community and the police, and it inevitably leads to racial profiling, because the police aren’t going to know somebody’s immigration status, but what they will see, if it’s a Black or brown person driving a vehicle or somebody that they think they can start to ask about immigration status of and that just drives a big wedge between the police and everybody else,” Chavez said.
