Attorney General Ken Paxton has joined an amicus brief before the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in support of Florida’s law banning sanctuary cities. So-called sanctuary cities are political subdivisions that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. As a result, sanctuary cities have become havens for illegal aliens and all the social, economic, and criminal costs that illegal immigration entails. The Florida law simply required local law enforcement officials to comply with federal immigration law.
In July 2019, the City of South Miami sued Governor Ron DeSantis, claiming the sanctuary city ban unlawfully discriminated against illegal aliens. A Florida federal district court halted the law’s enforcement in September 2021. Shortly thereafter, Florida appealed the decision.
The amicus brief is co-led by Georgia and Alabama, and Attorney General Paxton is proud to lend his support. In Texas, he has continued to defend our state’s sanctuary city ban. Indeed, in April 2022, Attorney General Paxton won a settlement against the city of San Antonio for its refusal to comply with Texas’s anti-sanctuary city law.
Read the 11th Circuit amicus brief here.