Immigrants' Justice

Immigrants' Rights

Florida is home to nearly five million immigrants who are our neighbors, co-workers, and the backbone of critical industries. Over a third of the state's agricultural workers and nearly a quarter of its construction workers are immigrants. Nearly half of health aides and over a quarter of nurses in Florida are immigrants. They have filled vital gaps in our state’s workforce for decades and contribute nearly 12 billion dollars in state and local taxes yearly. Additionally, over 700,000 mixed-status families and approximately 250,000 U.S. citizens live with an undocumented parent in Florida.

Laws that target them based on their status as immigrants violate the fundamental principles of fair and equal treatment. When the government has the power to deny legal rights and due process to one vulnerable group, everyone’s rights are at risk.

The ACLU of Florida has been an outspoken critic of Florida policies that link state driver’s licenses to immigration documents, give local police the power to enforce federal immigration laws, and indefinitely detain Haitian asylum-seekers behind bars, while releasing refugees from other nationalities to pursue their asylum claims.

The ACLU of Florida is committed to protecting the borders of our Constitution to ensure the protections in our Constitution and Bill of Rights apply to every person, regardless of immigration status.

Learn more on how you can help empower immigrant communities here.

The Latest

Know Your Rights
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Resources for Immigrant Communities & Allies

Press Release
ACLU Florida

New Lawsuit Challenges Florida’s Authority to Detain People at Notorious ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Detention Center

Facility represents a first-ever and unlawful use of 287(g) agreements to create a state-run immigration jail
Issue Areas: Immigrants' Justice
Press Release
ACLU Florida

Advocacy Groups File Federal Lawsuit Seeking Justice for Woman Abused at a Florida Immigration Detention Center

The lawsuit details the sexual harassment and physical abuse she endured while held in immigration detention in Baker County
Issue Areas: Immigrants' Justice
Press Release
ACLU Florida

Groups Sue Trump Administration Over Lack of Access to Counsel for People Held at Florida’s Notorious Everglades Immigration Detention Center

Issue Areas: Immigrants' Justice
Court Case
Jun 16, 2025

ACLU of Florida v. USCIS

The ACLU of Florida submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Citizens and Immigration Services (USCIS) in August 2024 concerning changes to an asylum application processing policy. In 2023, over one million applications were pending with USCIS. This includes hundreds of thousands of affirmative asylum cases pending over two years, with several thousand pending for over a decade. This effectively leaves affirmative asylum seekers in limbo, unable to progress in their education, find a job, or live a secure life. USCIS has been known to operate under a “last in, first out” system that leaves those who have been waiting the longest left to wait and wonder even more while new applications are prioritized. In response to this unacceptable lack of transparency, the ACLU of Florida inquired to USCIS about their process for scheduling interviews, prioritizing cases, and addressing delays. Because the government failed to produce the documents, we filed a lawsuit on December 16, 2024, seeking to compel USCIS to immediately release internal communications regarding its systems to adjudicate affirmative asylum applications and address the critical backlog of cases.
Court Case
Oct 24, 2024

ACLU of Florida v. ICE

In February and August 2024, the ACLU of Florida submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to ICE seeking information related to individuals’ detention in ICE custody at the Baker County Detention Center in Macclenny, Florida. These records have been sought as part of our efforts to monitor conditions at Baker and similar facilities and provide advocacy surrounding such conditions, given that, through various investigations, we have discovered that Baker has consistently failed to ensure the safety and well-being of people in ICE detention, in violation of the 2019 National Detention Standards. The records sought will significantly contribute to the public’s understanding of Baker’s use of solitary confinement and use of force against individuals detained there, as well as Baker’s provision of mental health care for individuals detained there. After ICE failed to timely produce the requested records, we filed the lawsuit on October 24, 2024.
Court Case
Jul 01, 2025

ACLU of Florida v. FDLE

In August and September 2022, we sent the Florida Department of Law Enforcement requests for records related to Executive Order 21-223 and 2022’s Senate Bill 1808 (seeking information regarding enforcement efforts against undocumented immigrants who the state claims have traveled to Florida from the U.S.-Mexico border). We filed a public-records complaint on July 19, 2023. The FDLE filed their response on September 5, 2023, saying they were understaffed. At a hearing in October 2023, the court ordered the FDLE to produce the records within 45 days. The FDLE encountered a delay after producing just two records. Due to internal turmoil at FDLE caused by the Governor’s office in connection with a separate public-records lawsuit, FDLE counsel in the case resigned. Subsequently, FDLE made successive productions of records revealing that state and local officers had initiated stops and made dozens of immigration-related arrests without federal authority, as part of a border strike force at the direction of Governor DeSantis, since October 2021.
Court Case
Mar 01, 2020

Creedle v. Miami‐Dade County

In 2017, Miami-Dade County’s then-Mayor Carlos Gimenez issued an order for county jails to comply with federal immigration detention requests. He was bending to pressure from the first Trump administration. That same year, the County then held our client on an ICE detainer. Our client is a U.S. citizen born in Honduras who can not be deported. This case shows how easily foreign born U.S. citizens (who comprise a significant portion of the population in South Florida) can get caught in ICE's dragnet. The ACLU of Florida and partners filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the county lacked the legal authority to comply with detainers and that the detainer issued against our client lacked probable cause. The defendants motions to dismiss were in large part denied. The case was stayed in March 2020 pending resolution of a related class action.