Florida SB 4-C Status After Court Block on Migrant Arrests

(Florida) — Federal courts have kept Florida’s SB 4-C blocked statewide, leaving the 2025 immigration law unenforceable as of March 2026 and barring any arrests, detentions or prosecutions under it.

The law, signed by Governor Ron DeSantis on February 13, 2025, created state crimes for undocumented immigrants’ entry and reentry into Florida. A preliminary injunction now prevents law enforcement agencies across the state from using it, after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams first imposed a temporary restraining order on April 4, 2025 and higher courts refused to lift the block.

Florida lost its effort to revive the measure in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and again on July 9, 2025, when the U.S. Supreme Court denied the state’s emergency request to enforce SB 4-C. The law remains dormant while the case moves forward in federal court.

How the lawsuit began

The dispute grew out of Florida Immigrant Coalition v. Uthmeier, a lawsuit brought by the Florida Immigrant Coalition, Farmworker Association of Florida, Americans for Immigrant Justice and individual plaintiffs, including visa applicants with U.S. citizen family members. The challengers argued that Florida had intruded on federal authority over immigration.

Williams agreed early in the case that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed and said they faced possible “irreparable harm” if the law took effect. She first halted enforcement with a temporary restraining order, then broadened the block into a preliminary injunction on April 29-30, 2025.

That injunction now bars enforcement against a statewide class of potential arrestees, not only the named plaintiffs. In practice, it means state officers cannot arrest anyone under SB 4-C.

What SB 4-C would have done

The blocked law carried sharp criminal penalties. Adults 18 and older who knowingly entered or tried to enter Florida after evading U.S. immigration inspection could have faced a first-degree misdemeanor and a mandatory minimum nine-month imprisonment.

Previously deported or removed people who reentered the state could have faced a third-degree felony. The mandatory minimum sentence rose to one year and one day for a second offense and two years for subsequent violations.

SB 4-C also included a provision requiring a mandatory death sentence for undocumented immigrants convicted of capital felonies such as first-degree murder. Critics argued that measure conflicted with U.S. Supreme Court precedent against mandatory capital punishment.

Supporters, including DeSantis, presented the law as a public safety measure that would complement federal enforcement. Florida paired it with SB 2-C, a companion bill that backed immigration enforcement efforts with more than $300 million for infrastructure including the State Board of Immigration Enforcement and local grants.

Court conflict and enforcement questions

The legal fight quickly turned confrontational. After Williams issued her temporary restraining order on April 4, 2025, at least 15 arrests still occurred, including one involving a U.S. citizen stopped by the Florida Highway Patrol.

Williams reacted sharply in court. “It never occurred to me that police officers would not be bound by it,” she said.

The judge later rebuked Attorney General James Uthmeier over an April 23 letter that suggested the law could continue to be enforced. Her order expanding the restraining order into a preliminary injunction came days later and widened protection against arrests under SB 4-C.

In May 2025, Uthmeier directed agencies to comply. His order covered sheriffs, police departments, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and highway patrol, heading off contempt proceedings.

Appeals court and Supreme Court rulings

Florida then turned to the appeals courts. A unanimous 11th Circuit panel refused to stay the injunction and criticized Uthmeier’s “seemingly defiant posture” during the dispute over enforcement.

That ruling kept the lower court order in place and aligned Florida with other states where courts had blocked similar immigration laws, including Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho and Iowa. The judges concluded that federal immigration law preempted Florida’s attempt to create its own entry and reentry crimes.

When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court on an emergency basis, the justices also declined to let Florida enforce SB 4-C. That left the preliminary injunction intact and shut down the state’s immediate path to revive the law.

Federal preemption and the Supremacy Clause

At the center of the case is the Supremacy Clause, which gives federal law primacy in immigration matters. Courts examining SB 4-C concluded that Florida’s measure interfered with the federal government’s control over entry, removal and immigration status.

The 11th Circuit said Congress had enacted “extensive regulation” in the field. That framework, the court found, left no room for Florida to impose separate criminal penalties for conduct already governed by federal law.

Florida argued that SB 4-C “tracks federal law” and does not conflict with it. The challengers countered that federal law does not authorize states to impose the same kind of mandatory jail terms or the death-penalty provision included in the Florida statute.

Impact on immigrants and families

For immigrants and their families, the injunction has immediate consequences. Farmworkers, visa applicants, asylum seekers and mixed-status households no longer face arrest under SB 4-C for entering or traveling in Florida while the court order remains in place.

The protection also extends beyond undocumented immigrants. Because the injunction halted all enforcement, it covers people vulnerable to misidentification, including lawful residents and U.S. citizens.

That point became central after the arrest of a U.S. citizen during the brief period when enforcement continued despite the temporary restraining order. Opponents of the law said the incident showed how quickly errors could spread once officers began making state-level immigration arrests.

Bacardi Jackson of the ACLU called the court’s intervention a “win for human rights.” Immigrant rights groups said the block had reduced fear of detention and family separation tied to the law’s no-bond provisions.

Before the injunction, SB 4-C had threatened mandatory state jail time with no diversion programs or pretrial release. The law also required law enforcement to report arrests to federal authorities, tightening the link between local policing and immigration enforcement.

Florida’s broader immigration crackdown

Although SB 4-C is frozen, Florida’s broader immigration crackdown has not stopped. SB 2-C remains at least partly active and continues to shape state policy.

That law funds immigration-related grants at a level described as $250-300 million, creates third-degree felony charges for noncitizen voting with no ignorance defense, and presumes flight risk in bail decisions for undocumented offenders. It also limits in-state tuition for undocumented students and blocks the use of state-chartered IDs for banking.

In 2026, Florida pushed further restrictions through measures described as barring undocumented workers’ IDs for bank accounts or cashier’s checks. Those steps do not revive SB 4-C, but they show how the state shifted toward tools that stop short of creating new entry crimes.

The blocked law had targeted “adult unauthorized aliens” who entered after federal evasion of inspection, including some who later gained status. That scope worried plaintiffs who said the law could catch people with pending immigration cases, work ties and U.S. citizen relatives.

The practical effect of the injunction has reached beyond the courtroom. Advocates said it stabilized Florida’s 1.5+ million immigrant workforce, which plays a large role in agriculture and construction, by preventing the threat of mass arrests under the state statute.

Employers, schools and banks also no longer face any mandates tied to SB 4-C. The preliminary injunction shut off the law entirely, leaving no lawful basis for state officers to arrest or detain people under its entry and reentry provisions.

The case remains alive in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, where a final ruling on the merits could strike the law permanently. For now, though, the decisive point is narrower and immediate: SB 4-C cannot be enforced.

That status has held through every major ruling since the temporary restraining order took effect. Williams blocked the law, the 11th Circuit refused to undo her order, and the U.S. Supreme Court left that block in place.

The sequence has turned SB 4-C into a test of how far states can go when they try to police immigration on their own. In Florida, at least for now, federal judges have answered that question by stopping migrant arrests under the law before they could become routine.