Court Cases

Erika Santos joined the public debate over what legacy Charlie Kirk was leaving behind in the aftermath of his public killing on September 10, 2025. In retaliation for her criticisms, Eastern Florida State College fired the grant accountant after a perfunctory “investigation”. This is the second case we have brought to combat the government’s efforts to expand its censorship power based on reactions to Kirk’s death (the first is Brown v. Young).

This case challenges a law requiring new and current voters to have “evidence of citizenship” on file, such as a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote or remain on the voter rolls. Thousands of Floridians don’t have ready access to these documents.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) terminated Brittney Brown, a wildlife biologist who manages critical shorebird nests, in retaliation for sharing political criticism of Charlie Kirk through her personal social media. FWC publicly declared that her personal expression was “not in line with the FWC, our values, or our mission” in its public post announcing her termination. Ms. Brown sued two FWC officials in late September 2025, alleging retaliation and viewpoint discrimination in violation of her First Amendment right to free speech. She moved for a preliminary injunction seeking immediate reinstatement, which the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida denied on November 13, 2025 after oral argument. The Court ordered immediate discovery to resolve factual disputes necessary to determine if FWC had adequate justification to terminate Ms. Brown for her personal expression.

Immigrants’ rights advocates sued the Trump administration over lack of access to legal counsel and violations of due process for people detained at Florida’s new, notorious Everglades immigration center, a hastily constructed facility on an abandoned airstrip in the middle of the wetlands in Ochopee. The facility, cruelly dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” is built out of temporary tents, trailers, and chain-link fences with barbed wire. It is surrounded by alligators, pythons, mosquitos, and swampland, and is at risk of dangerous flooding. Around the time of our filing, approximately 700 people were detained there, and the facility has the capacity to detain at least 3,000. No protocols existed at this facility for providing basic, confidential attorney-client communication. Detainees only had access to infrequent pay phone calls that were timed, monitored, and recorded. Additionally, many detainees were eligible for release on bond but had no access to bond hearings. This class-action case was brought by detainees held at the facility and legal service providers and law firms with clients held at the site, including Sanctuary of the South and Bilbao Law, LLC. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Florida, and Americans for Immigrant Justice.

This case arises out of Florida’s attempt to prohibit minors from viewing drag shows that officials might deem “lewd” in some way, without adhering to the accepted constitutional test for obscenity as to minors. The 2023 Florida Legislature’s SB 1438 (the “drag ban”) directly infringes upon minors’ First Amendment rights by purporting to broadly proscribe their ability to view drag performances that, though they might appear shocking or inappropriate in the eye of a government censor, are not constitutionally obscene for them. In May 2023, plaintiff’s HM Florida ORL LLC, which operates the drag-themed restaurant and bar Hamburger Mary’s in Orlando, sued to enjoin enforcement of the drag ban on the grounds that it violates the First Amendment because it restricts protected speech based on the identity of the speaker and is impermissibly vague and overbroad. The next month, a judge in the Middle District of Florida granted plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, declaring it substantially likely that HM Florida ORL LLC would succeed on the merits of its First Amendment claims. The opinion explained that Florida’s drag ban was a facially content-based regulation on speech that likely failed strict scrutiny because the state had overshot the least restrictive means necessary to achieve its purported goal. The district court cited a wide range of conduct that might constitute a “live performance” under the drag ban. Moreover, the court held that the drag ban’s failure to define key phrases such as “lewd conduct” likely rendered it void for vagueness. The government appealed the injunction and sought to have it stayed pending appellate review, which both the Eleventh Circuit and Supreme Court declined to do. In January 2024, the ACLU filed an amicus brief in the Eleventh Circuit concerning the drag ban. The brief contended that minors have a constitutional right to attend drag performances and that the drag ban’s expansion beyond the constitutional test for obscenity for minors is unconstitutionally overbroad and unconstitutionally vague. In May 2025, a three-judge appellate panel upheld the lower court’s decision. In December 2025, the full court decided to rehear the case en banc.

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.