Court Cases

Our client, a 24-year-old man originally from El Salvador, was detained at the Baker County Detention Center (which in part operates as an immigration detention facility) without a criminal record, solely based on ICE suspicions that he had gang affiliations. He has suffered from a psychotic disorder and speaks little English. While in detention, ICE and Baker County officers threw him in solitary confinement for 88 days to pressure him to sign his deportation papers. His mental-health condition worsened during his confinement, and he was violently assaulted by a corrections officer because he was singing too loudly. His eardrum was damaged by the assault. These actions violated ICE policies and Florida law and illustrate broader conditions issues at the Baker County Detention Center. We filed a Federal Tort Claims Act administrative complaint on December 19, 2023, and then filed a federal lawsuit on November 22, 2024.

This case challenges bans on non-citizens being involved in voter-registration activity in Florida and the harsh strict-liability penalties ($50,000 per individual violation) that can put third-party voter-registration organizations out of business even for accidental violations. Working with numerous partners, we obtained a preliminary injunction against enforcement in July 2023, which became a permanent injunction after a successful trial in April 2024.

Our client Naples Pride, a nonprofit that provides services and hosts events for the LGBTQ+ community, filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Naples and its entities for denying the non-profit organization a special events permit to host a family-friendly drag performance in one of the city’s public parks as part of its annual Pridefest celebration. The city’s refusal to grant a permit was part of a years-long effort to target drag performances and LGBTQ+ pride events in violation of the First Amendment. The complaint was filed on April 10, 2025. The district court granted a preliminary injunction on May 12, 2025, but the Eleventh Circuit — in a split, 2-1 decision — placed a stay on that ruling on June 6, 2025, the day before the event. The event went forward on June 7 with the drag performance indoors.

Immigrants’ rights advocates filed a federal lawsuit challenging Florida’s authority to detain people at the notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center, a hastily constructed immigration detention facility in the middle of the Everglades, which is surrounded by alligators, snakes, mosquitos, and swampland at risk of dangerous flooding. The case focuses on the state’s unprecedented assertion of authority to operate an immigration detention center pursuant to several 287(g) agreements, despite how 287(g) agreements do not confer such authority. The state’s chaotic and cruel operations, void of federal oversight, have resulted in unprecedented challenges that people in immigration detention typically do not face, including being held without charge, not receiving initial custody or bond determinations, not appearing in the detainee locator system, and not being able to access their attorneys or immigration court. Physical conditions at the facility are atrocious and dangerous. Detainees are going “off the grid” and being taken out of the normal systems for immigration detention and removal proceedings. Congress required the Department of Homeland Security to maintain custody of immigration detainees, and it imposed tight limits on the 287(g) program, precisely to avoid these kinds of problems. The 287(g) program allows certain individual state and local officers to help with a narrow set of immigration enforcement tasks, subject to rigorous training and close supervision by federal officials. It does not allow them to set up their own independent detention operations. And it does not let state officers sub-delegate immigration authority to private contractors who do not and cannot participate in the 287(g) program. Florida officers are also acting without adequate training in the many complex facets of immigration law. Many are only spending a few hours online, compared to equivalent federal officers who receive multiple weeks of in-person training. This class-action case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida, Community Justice Project, and National Immigrant Justice Center on behalf of people detained at the Everglades facility.

This case challenges one congressional district and three State House districts in South Florida as racially gerrymandered in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Legislature drew these districts along racial lines to form non-compact shapes, connect disparate neighborhoods, and divide established communities. In doing so, lawmakers ignored the nuanced, multifaceted, and diverse nature of the region’s Hispanic and Latino community, treating Hispanic voters as a monolithic group based on false and stereotypic assumptions, which dilutes their influence. The use of race to draw these districts was not justified by the Voting Rights Act or the minority-protection provisions of Florida's Fair Districts Amendments. We filed the case in May 2024. In November 2025, the court permitted our claims over Congressional District 26 and House Districts 115, 118, and 119 to proceed to trial, which was held in January 2026.

This case challenges the Daytona Beach City Commission’s redistricting map, adopted in October 2025, as racially gerrymandered in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. In drawing the map, the City Commission set an arbitrary and unjustified racial target for two districts. To achieve their desired racial composition, commissioners connected disparate neighborhoods, divided established communities, and ignored citizen input. The use of race to draw these districts was not justified by the Voting Rights Act. We filed our complaint in October 2025.

We filed suit on behalf of two transgender women and one transgender man who were state employees denied coverage for gender-affirming care in their state healthcare plans. All of the state healthcare plans, including those provided to the Plaintiffs, explicitly exclude coverage of “gender reassignment or modification services or supplies.” These plans single out transgender employees for unequal treatment by categorically depriving them of coverage for gender-affirming care through their exclusions. Other state employees who are not transgender do not face categorical exclusions barring coverage for medically necessary health care. We filed the case in January 2020 with claims arising under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We amended our complaint in April 2020. Summary-judgment briefing was completed in March 2021. In August 2024, the judge granted partial summary judgment for plaintiffs, holding that the categorical exclusions violate Title VII. Supplemental briefs were ordered on the effect of a related decision pending in the Eleventh Circuit (Lange v. Houston County, Georgia). On November 3, 2025, the Defendants filed a motion to reconsider the partial summary judgment in light of the full Eleventh Circuit’s en banc decision in Lange.

The ACLU represents all prisoners at the Broward County Jail, challenging inadequate mental healthcare. In 1995, a consent decree was approved that acknowledged that the living conditions of the inmates were unconstitutional, set a population cap for the jail, and established a system for compliance monitoring. The ACLU then joined as counsel in 2001 to oppose the Broward County Sheriff’s efforts to terminate the consent decree. In 2004, two stipulations for settlement were entered that dismissed the medical claims and narrowed the scope of monitoring. The stipulations also limited judicial oversight of the jail to issues “relating to mental health services, inmate rules and discipline, inmate safety and security, facility capacity, and inmate access to religious publication and services and access to legal material.” In 2010, a significant increase in the jail population led to overcrowding. The Court then appointed a population management expert to produce a report examining the processes and policies affecting the population at the jail. In 2014, two prisoners filed motions asserting the consent decree had been violated. In 2016, the Court held a hearing on whether to dissolve the consent decree and later preliminarily approved a settlement. Later, a 2018 report by a mental health expert described the conditions of the jail as “absolutely inhumane.” In 2018, the parties reached a comprehensive settlement agreement that would result in improvements throughout the jail’s mental-healthcare system. The settlement will result in termination of the consent decree and a dismissal of the case when the jail has maintained substantial compliance with each of the substantive provisions of the agreement for one year. In December 2020, we filed an expert report explaining the jail’s lack of compliance. Another expert report was filed in May 2023, January 2024, August 2025 and January 2026. We continue to monitor progress towards compliance and we are pleased that the jail is making progress.

This case challenges Tallahassee’s fire services fee, a flat monthly charge per household that disproportionately impacts low-income households, and Black and Hispanic residents, students, and renters. Because each household pays the same, regardless of income, property value, or ability to pay, the fee is a regressive tax. The case argues the city lacks the authority under the Florida Constitution to levy this fee. The suit was filed with the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of Citizens for Government Accountability and three Tallahassee residents.