Florida AG Suspends Immigrant Arrests After Judge Calls Them Unlawful

According to reports, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has told police in the Sunshine State to stop making immigration arrests under a new law that was signed into effect by Gov. Ron DeSantis in February. This comes after a federal judge scolded local police in court for not following an order she gave to stop these kinds of arrests.

The Miami Herald reports that U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, who was appointed by Barack Obama, said in court on Friday, “There is no such basis.” She is said to have asked, “Why aren’t these people being freed right away?”

Robert Schenck, a lawyer for the Office of the Attorney General, which is being sued over the new state law that DeSantis signed into effect and which lets police arrest and prosecute undocumented immigrants in Florida, said during the hearing that even though Williams’ order said that state officials couldn’t issue arrest warrants, the state thought that police didn’t have to follow it because they don’t work “in concert” with each other, according to the Herald.

“Your Honor, that’s how we understand the order,” Schenck said.

As Williams replied, “I’m shocked and don’t understand this argument.” “It worries me that they don’t work together with state officials,” she said.

On February 13, DeSantis signed a bill that lets state police arrest and punish undocumented immigrants. On April 4, Williams issued a 14-day stay that stopped the law from being applied in Florida. She did this because she believed it was the federal government’s job, not the states’, to arrest and prosecute migrants.

“When I issued the temporary restraining order, I had no idea that police officers would not be bound by it,” Williams told the Herald on Friday.

“It never occurred to me that the state attorneys wouldn’t tell the police what to do so that these unpleasant arrests wouldn’t happen,” she said.

The judge and local news sites say that multiple arrests have been made in spite of Williams’ order.

Reports say that last week, a Florida Highway Patrol officer used the new law to arrest a U.S. citizen from Georgia in north Florida.

Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez, who is 20 years old, was arrested on Wednesday. Adult immigrants who were in the country illegally had to check in with federal border agents before they could enter Florida because of the new law.

According to the Herald, FHP officials said in a statement, “Mr. Lopez Gomez was a passenger in a vehicle that was pulled over for speeding and told a Florida State Trooper that he was not legally authorized to be in the United States.”

The statement also said that a federal detainer had been put out for him. “He was taken to the jail in Leon County.”

Immigration lawyers have criticized Florida police and local officials for what happened to Lopez Gomez, saying it is similar to what has happened in other cities across the country recently, such as Maryland, where a protected dad named Kilmar Abrego Garcia was arrested and sent back to Mexico without a warrant.

Civil rights groups and the Justice Department are in a public court battle over the Abrego Garcia case. Lawyers in the Florida case are afraid that the same thing could happen with Lopez Gomez and others.

A lawyer for Americans for Immigrant Justice and one of the lawyers in the federal case against the new Florida law, Paul Chavez, told the Herald, “There is a state-wide injunction against anyone enforcing that law.”

He said, “The court order is very clear.”

Fox News reports that Uthmeier sent a letter to state officials on Monday telling them that local police must follow Williams’ order no matter what they think or how they see it. We tried to get in touch with the AG’s office to get a comment, but they were unable to do so.

On April 29, there will be another meeting to talk about the case in more detail.