Federal judge strikes down Florida immigration law as racially motivated News
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Federal judge strikes down Florida immigration law as racially motivated

A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Tuesday struck down a portion of a Florida immigration law as unconstitutional and declared that the measures within the bill were racially motivated.

Judge Beth Bloom released a 110-page ruling in which she rejected sections of the law that ban local government sanctuary policies and require local law enforcement to make their best effort to work with federal immigration authorities. Bloom said that these portions had discriminatory motives and that there was no evidence shown as to why these portions were needed to lower 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, an anti-immigration hate group, and state Senator Joe Gruter’s staff. Gruter was the senator that sponsored SB 168. 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.”