Left: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducting a raid (Fox News/YouTube). Right: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (Office of Attorney General).
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has reportedly directed authorities in the Sunshine State to stop immigration arrests from being carried out under a new law, which was signed into effect by Gov. Ron DeSantis in February, after a federal judge ripped local cops in court for ignoring an order she gave blocking such arrests.
“There is no such basis,” proclaimed U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, a Barack Obama appointee, in court on Friday, according to the Miami Herald. “Why aren’t these people being released immediately?” she reportedly asked.
Robert Schenck, a lawyer who is representing the Office of the Attorney General, which is being sued over the new state law that was signed into effect by DeSantis — allowing for the arrest and prosecution of undocumented immigrants in Florida — claimed during the hearing that while state officials were blocked from issuing arrest warrants under Williams’ order, the state believed that law enforcement officers did not have to comply because they don’t act “in concert” with one another, per the Herald.
“Your honor, that is our understanding of the order,” Schenck said.
“I’m astounded and don’t understand this argument,” Williams fired back. “That’s concerning that they don’t work in concert with state officials,” she said.
DeSantis signed the bill allowing state law enforcement to arrest and prosecute undocumented immigrants on Feb. 13. Williams issued a 14-day stay on April 4, blocking the law from being enforced in Florida as she argued that it was the federal government’s responsibility to bust and litigate migrants, not individual states.
“When I issued the temporary restraining order, it never occurred to me that police officers would not be bound by it,” Williams said Friday, according to the Herald.
“It never occurred to me that the state attorneys would not give direction to law enforcement so that we would not have these unfortunate arrests,” she said.
Multiple arrests have been carried out in violation of Williams’ order, according to the judge and local media outlets.
A Florida Highway Patrol trooper, for instance, arrested a U.S. citizen from Georgia in north Florida last week under the new statute, according to reports.
Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez, 20, was taken into custody on Wednesday. The new law required undocumented adult immigrants to first check in with federal border authorities before entering Florida.
“Mr. Lopez Gomez was a passenger in a vehicle pulled over for speeding and made a statement to a Florida State Trooper that he was not legally authorized to be in the United States,” FHP officials said in a statement, according to the Herald.
“There was also a federal detainer issued for him,” the statement said. “He was transported to the Leon County Jail.”
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Immigration lawyers have called out Florida law enforcement and local officials for what has happened to Lopez Gomez, saying it mirrors other situations that have unfolded across the country recently, including in Maryland, where protected dad Kilmar Abrego Garcia was arrested and erroneously deported by federal agents.
The Abrego Garcia case has sparked a headline-grabbing legal war between civil rights groups and the Justice Department; lawyers in the Florida case are worried a similar situation could happen with Lopez Gomez and others.
“There is a state-wide injunction against anybody enforcing that law,” said Paul Chavez, litigation director at Americans for Immigrant Justice and an attorney in the federal lawsuit challenging the new Florida state law, in a statement to the Herald.
“The court order is very clear,” he said.
Uthmeier reportedly sent a letter to state officials on Monday, directing local law enforcement to comply with Williams’ order regardless of what they believe or how they perceive it, according to Fox News. Attempts by Law&Crime to reach the AG’s office for comment were unsuccessful.
Another hearing has been scheduled for April 29 to further discuss the matter.
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