Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sent a letter to law enforcement Wednesday stating that he won’t stop them from enforcing a temporarily blocked state immigration law that led to the arrest of a U.S. citizen last week.
Uthmeier’s letter states that he doesn’t believe law enforcement has to abide by the order from a federal judge in Miami prohibiting the state from enforcing the law, which makes it a first-degree misdemeanor to illegally enter the state as an “unauthorized alien” and adds heightened penalties for re-entry.
At the direction of U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams, Uthmeier sent a memo to law enforcement Friday, writing that they shouldn’t make arrests under the law. This week’s letter, however, states that he won’t stand in the way of arrests under the law Gov. Ron DeSantis signed on Feb. 13 and Williams blocked on April 4.
“I cannot prevent you from enforcing §§811.102 and 811.103, where there remains no judicial order that properly restrains you from doing so,” Uthmeier wrote to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Florida Highway Patrol, sheriffs, and police chiefs.
The letter could draw the ire of Williams during the next scheduled hearing on April 29. The judge for the Southern District of Florida expressed frustration Friday about the ongoing enforcement of the law, bringing up the arrest by a FHP trooper of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, the 20-year-old born in Georgia.
The case garnered national attention following Florida Phoenix’s reporting of the arrest without probable cause on Thursday and Lopez-Gomez’s subsequent release from the Leon County Jail.
Although Williams specified on Friday that her order applied to law enforcement, Uthmeier maintains that it doesn’t because FDLE, FHP, sheriffs, and police departments are not named defendants in the suit brought against the state by the Florida Immigrant Coalition, Farmworker Association of Florida Inc., and two women lacking permanent legal status.
Alana Greer, director of the Community Justice Project, wrote in a statement to the Phoenix that the group worries more arrests will happen. The project represents the plaintiffs in the suit along with the ACLU of Florida, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and Florida Legal Services.
“A federal judge entered not one, but two clear and direct orders stopping enforcement of this law,” Greer wrote. “The Attorney General’s letter makes us gravely concerned that Floridians will continue to be arrested under this unconstitutional statute. We will be back in court to ensure their rights are protected.”
Bob Gualtieri via Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.
Not all law enforcement is on board with continuing enforcement despite the judge’s order.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, a member of the State Immigration Enforcement Council established earlier this year, told the Phoenix that his deputies won’t arrest anyone under its provisions. Gualtieri had not seen Uthmeier’s Wednesday letter but said nothing could make him disobey the judge’s order.
“I don’t think it changes anything,” Gualtieri said of the letter during a phone interview. “We take our direction on something like that from the judge, not from anybody else.”
DeSantis backed Uthmeier, his former chief of staff, in a post on X: “Immigration law must be enforced and FL is leading on working with the Trump administration to get it done.” The governor had previously criticized Williams’ order temporarily blocking the law, referring to her as an activist judge during an April 7 press conference.
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles did not respond to the Phoenix’s request for comment about whether troopers would continue arrests.
A spokesperson for the department wrote to the Phoenix on Friday, stating that FHP would keep working with federal partners to engage in interior enforcement of immigration law.