Jackie Llanos, Florida Phoenix

Gov. Ron DeSantis appears to be cooling off, for now at least, on a plan to build a second state-run immigrant detention center at the Florida National Guard training site in Clay County.

The governor won’t consider building another temporary detention facility at the Camp Blanding Joint Training Center until the one in the Everglades reaches capacity, saying during a Wednesday press conference in Tampa that the existing site could easily fit 3,000 to 4,000 people.

“But what I don’t want to do is set up Blanding if, you know, one is 60% full and then the other is 40%,” DeSantis said during the press conference. “I’d rather just channel everyone to [Alligator Alcatraz] since it’s easier.”

The governor visited Tampa to appoint Spring Hill Republican state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia as the state’s chief financial officer. He replaces Jimmy Patronis, who now serves in the U.S. House.

Last week, the governor said construction of an immigrant detention center in Camp Blanding would depend on demand from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. But DeSantis’ recent comments marked a shift from the hype with which state officials spoke about it before detainees started arriving at the site at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management is the state agency in charge of the potential construction in Camp Blanding, which its top official teased during President Donald Trump’s visit to the Everglades detention center.

“I would say right after our wonderful Independence Day, we will be starting construction there in that facility,” DEM director Kevin Guthrie said during a roundtable with Trump on July 1.

Still, DeSantis said the immigrant detention center in the Everglades might reach capacity within the next two weeks.

So far, the state has lacked transparency about the number of people at the detention center, with Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announcing that hundreds would start arriving on July 2.

The most detailed information about the detainees has come from the Miami Herald, which published a list on Sunday of the 750 detainees housed there, including more than 250 people without criminal convictions or pending charges in the country.

Answering questions about the timeline for opening a detention center at Camp Blanding, the governor has emphasized the bidding process for companies. Construction at the airstrip in the Big Cypress National Preserve took eight days and started days after Uthmeier publicly rolled out the plan.

“I don’t want to be creating some structure that can hold 2,000 illegal aliens, and then we end up having, like, 150 there after a week,” DeSantis said Wednesday.

The Jacksonville Immigrant Rights Alliance has organized rallies against the plan for Camp Blanding, and it is planning another one on Saturday.

“We’re tired of political points and political careers being made off of the backs of hard-working Floridians, whether that be our immigrant brothers and sisters that are being persecuted and rounded up, or just the Floridian taxpayers, who are also underwater with bills,” said Maria Garcia-Rodriguez, a lead organizer for the alliance, in a phone interview with Florida Phoenix.

The federal government is disavowing responsibility for Florida’s Everglades immigration center the morning after people awaiting deportation arrived.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security neither funded nor authorized the 3,000-capacity tent and trailer detention center, counsel for the department wrote in a filing opposing environmental groups’ request that a federal court halt the site.

DHS also denied any authority over the immigrants, stating that Florida had decided to hold people at the detention center, rushed to completion in eight days.

Before Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that hundreds of immigrants would arrive Wednesday night, DeSantis’ communications director, Bryan Griffin, told reporters the timing of the arrival of detainees was up to DHS. Griffin also said the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) was in charge of the detention center with oversight from the federal government.

DHS’ Thursday filings contrast what Kristi Noem, the department’s head, and the president have said about FEMA’s funding of the detention center, which is projected to cost the state $450 million to run annually.

“We took the FEMA money that Joe Biden allocated to pay for the free luxury hotel rooms where he’s paying hundreds of millions of dollars in New York City, and we used it to build this project,” President Donald Trump said Tuesday during his tour of the detention center at the Miami-Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport.

While in public, the Trump administration has touted the use of FEMA funds to reimburse Florida, its attempt to stave off the legal challenge to the Everglades site includes arguing that federal funding hasn’t and may never come. Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against DHS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), FDEM, and Miami-Dade County.

The environmental groups are challenging the legality of the detention center because it has not gone through any environmental review as required under federal law, and the public did not get an opportunity to comment.

“Florida has received no federal funds, nor has it applied for federal funds related to the temporary detention center,” counsel for DHS and ICE wrote. “Courts cannot adjudicate hypothetical future funding decisions or render advisory opinions on contingent scenarios that may never materialize.”

Another top ICE official described in a declaration to the court the agency’s role in the development of the detention center as limited to an inspection to ensure compliance and meeting with state officials to discuss operational matters.

The DeSantis administration relied on a January 2023 emergency declaration against illegal immigration to commandeer the land owned by Miami-Dade County. The governor and Uthmeier have described the detention center as “Alligator Alcatraz,” a “one-stop shop” for deportations, stating that the flights would be handled by the federal government.

Oversight visit from Dems

Democrats at the state and federal levels have called out the lack of transparency or answers about the operation of the detention center. State Democratic lawmakers (Sens. Shevrin Jones and Carlos Guillermo Smith and Reps. Anna Eskamani, Angie Nixon, and Michele Rayner) planned to visit the center on Thursday afternoon.

“As lawmakers, we have both the legal right and moral responsibility to inspect this site, demand answers, and expose this abuse before it becomes the national blueprint,” they wrote in a press release. “So much of this is also a distraction from the everyday issues all Floridians are facing, like housing affordability and the property insurance crisis. DeSantis should be focused on solving those issues, not creating even more chaos.”

Earlier in the week, FDEM Director Kevin Guthrie argued in a filing to the court that the detention center is necessary to alleviate overcrowding in ICE detention centers. Five people have died in ICE custody in Florida this year, according to agency press releases. As of June 15, ICE held 56,397 people in detention, exceeding the 41,500 it has the funds to detain in the 2024 fiscal year.

Neither FDEM nor the governor’s office immediately responded to the Florida Phoenix’s request for comment.

Federal judge holds AG James Uthmeier in contempt of court

by Jackie Llanos, Florida Phoenix
June 17, 2025

For the first time in recent history, a federal judge on Tuesday found Florida’s attorney general in contempt of court for referring to the court’s order blocking a new state immigration law as illegitimate and unlawful.

While U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams’ ruling is extraordinary, she spared James Uthmeier from paying hefty fines or spending time in jail. Instead, Williams ordered the state’s chief legal officer to submit biweekly reports to ensure police don’t arrest anyone under an immigration law she blocked in April.

Quoting Humpty Dumpty in her order, Williams chastised Uthmeier.

“Litigants cannot change the plain meaning of words as it suits them, especially when conveying a court’s clear and unambiguous order,” she wrote. “Fidelity to the rule of law can have no other meaning.”

The order followed a May 29 hearing in Miami, where Williams repeatedly locked horns with Jesse Panuccio, the prominent lawyer defending Uthmeier, during arguments about whether to hold him in contempt.

At issue in the contempt decision was a letter Uthmeier sent to law enforcement agencies, sheriffs, and police chiefs on April 23, stating that he couldn’t stop them from making arrests under SB 4C, a law making it a first-degree misdemeanor for a person to enter the state as an “unauthorized alien.”

“If being held in contempt is what it costs to defend the rule of law and stand firmly behind President Trump’s agenda on illegal immigration, so be it,” Uthmeier wrote on X.

Arrests after Williams’ order

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed SB 4C on Feb. 13, but Williams blocked its enforcement temporarily after the Florida Immigrant Coalition, the Farmworker Association of Florida, and two women lacking permanent legal status brought suit against the state.

Still, law enforcement carried out arrests after Williams barred them from doing so. A Florida Highway Patrol trooper’s arrest of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a U.S. citizen from Georgia, garnered international attention after it was first reported by the Florida Phoenix.

An investigation by the Tampa Bay Times found that police, mostly other troopers, arrested 25 people on April 4, but didn’t find evidence of arrests after April 18. The second date is important because that is when Williams issued a second order clarifying that her suspension of the law applied to cops, which the state argued against, claiming that Uthmeier lacked authority to stop the arrests.

Williams also noted in her Tuesday order various interviews and social media posts from Uthemeier flouting the temporary block on the law.

Leading up to the hearing, Uthmeier said during an interview that aired on Newsmax on May 6 that he wouldn’t rubber stamp her order.

“To be clear, the Court is unconcerned with Uthmeier’s criticism and disapproval of the Court and the Court’s Order,” she wrote. “But respect for the integrity of court orders is of paramount importance.”

After six months, Uthmeier can ask Williams to stop the reporting requirement, but Williams warned there would be additional sanctions if he disobeys her.

The law will remain blocked for the remainder of the litigation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit sided with the plaintiffs on June 6 and upheld the temporary bar, with the order stating that federal law likely preempted SB 4C.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.

Gov. Ron DeSantis called the investigation by a state attorney into First Lady Casey DeSantis’ Hope Florida Foundation a manufactured political operation during a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

The governor spoke at more length Wednesday than he’d done Tuesday when the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald first reported the open investigation by State’s Attorney Jack Campbell in Tallahassee into the transfer to the foundation of $10 million from a $67 million Medicaid overpayment settlement with the state.

After signing three bills in Winter Haven, DeSantis answered questions about the Hope Florida investigation by insulting Pensacola Republican Alex Andrade, chair of the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee, who launched a legislative probe into the settlement during this year’s legislative session.

“You have one Jackass in the legislature — I’m sorry, it’s true — who’s trying to smear her, smear good people, and just understand what happened,” DeSantis said. “He took documents and he dropped them in a prosecutor’s office that is not an organic investigation, that’s a manufactured political operation. That’s all this is: Somebody with an agenda dropped off documents, and that’s all that.”

Hope Florida Foundation steered the funds to two groups that sent a combined $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, a political action committee created to oppose Amendment 3, the failed 2024 ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana. The governor’s then-chief of staff and current attorney general, James Uthmeier, chaired that committee.

Andrade responded to DeSantis’ comments on X, stating, “I can feel the love…”

DeSantis rages at open investigation into Hope Florida Foundation, calls it ‘manufactured’

by Jackie Llanos, Florida Phoenix
May 21, 2025

Gov. Ron DeSantis called the investigation by a state attorney into First Lady Casey DeSantis’ Hope Florida Foundation a manufactured political operation during a press conference Wednesday afternoon,

The governor spoke at more length Wednesday than he’d done Tuesday when the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald first reported the open investigation by State’s Attorney Jack Campbell in Tallahassee into the transfer to the foundation of $10 million from a $67 million Medicaid overpayment settlement with the state.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

After signing three bills in Winter Haven, DeSantis answered questions about the Hope Florida investigation by insulting Pensacola Republican Alex Andrade, chair of the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee, who launched a legislative probe into the settlement during this year’s legislative session.

“You have one Jackass in the legislature — I’m sorry, it’s true — who’s trying to smear her, smear good people, and just understand what happened,” DeSantis said. “He took documents and he dropped them in a prosecutor’s office that is not an organic investigation, that’s a manufactured political operation. That’s all this is: Somebody with an agenda dropped off documents, and that’s all that.”

Hope Florida Foundation steered the funds to two groups that sent a combined $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, a political action committee created to oppose Amendment 3, the failed 2024 ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana. The governor’s then-chief of staff and current attorney general, James Uthmeier, chaired that committee.

Andrade responded to DeSantis’ comments on X, stating, “I can feel the love…”

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is standing by Attorney General James Uthmeier’s open defiance of a federal court order requiring law enforcement agencies in Florida to halt immigration arrests under a new state immigration law.

Talking with reporters in Tampa, the governor said the episode raises a “larger issue” of who can enact public policy in the United States.

“He’s right on the law,” DeSantis said about Uthmeier’s decision to defy the court. “He has the courage to stand and do what’s right, even knowing that he’s going to get blowback.”

DeSantis made those comments following a roundtable discussion on providing property tax relief at the Hula Bay Club in South Tampa. He said the legal standoff raises the question of whether it’s the public who get to decide policy through popular elections or “unelected lifetime-appointed judges.”

“There’s a role for the judiciary, but it’s to decide a case and a controversy before you,” he said. “It’s not to go outside the bounds of judicial policy or judicial role and try to enact policy.”

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida has suspended enforcement of the law (SB 4-C), passed by the Legislature in a special session in February and signed by the governor on Feb. 13, that gives state officers the power to arrest someone they suspect of entering the state as an “unauthorized alien.”

Uthmeier has since filed an appeal of that decision with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

In a filing Wednesday, Uthmeier asked the appellate court to allow law enforcement to continue arrests as the litigation continues. The arrest by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper of a U.S. citizen in Tallahassee on April 16 under the law drew national attention and the ire of Williams, who had suspended the law on April 4.

U.S. citizen released from jail after arrest under Florida’s new anti-immigration law

“The district court’s order wrongly binds all of Florida’s law-enforcement officers — who are not parties, not the parties’ agents, and not acting in concert with the parties — flouting longstanding equitable principles entitling every litigant to ‘their day in court,'” the state’s attorneys wrote.

At issue is also a letter Uthmeier wrote to law enforcement agencies in Florida on April 23 after Williams’ original order blocking the law, advising them in part that “no lawful, legitimate order currently impedes [their] agencies from continuing to enforce” the law.

Williams wrote in an order last week that Uthmeier needs to show cause why he should not be held in contempt or sanctioned for violating her order. A hearing on that matter is scheduled for May 29.

Bashing the judicial

The governor and Uthmeier contend that the judge in the case has gone beyond her boundaries in calling on Florida law enforcement agencies to stop making immigration arrests.

“She’s trying to exercise authority that she does not possess. Fine,” DeSantis said. “There’s parties to the case and she’s rendered a decision even though it’s a flawed decision that will be appealed. … You can’t go out and then say some sheriff in the Panhandle is somehow subject to your order — they were not involved in the litigation at all.”

DeSantis’ criticisms echo those of President Donald Trump, who faces more than 200 lawsuits in just the first 100-plus days of his presidency, challenging the legality of his orders, according to Reuters. The president has referred to some of those judges as “radical,” “conflicted,” and “rogue.”

Defiant Uthmeier says he won’t tell cops to stop arrests under suspended immigration law

Background on the suit

The ACLU challenged the law last month, along with Americans for Immigrant Justice on behalf of the Farmworkers Association of Florida, the Florida Immigrant Coalition, and two women lacking permanent legal status.

The law makes it a misdemeanor for adults who came to the U.S. illegally by eluding or avoiding examination or inspection by immigration officers to enter Florida. The groups contend that the law is unconstitutional because only federal authorities have the power to enforce immigration laws.

Since the lawsuit was filed, Judge Williams has issued and extended the restraining order that banned state authorities from enforcing the new law, but Uthmeier says he fundamentally disagrees with her decision.

“She wants the law enforcement officers to stop committing arrests, and the problem is the ACLU didn’t sue any law enforcement officers,” Uthmeier said Tuesday night in an interview broadcast by the Newsmax cable network.

“So if they want to arrest people under the law, if they want to hand them over to ICE, if they want to help the Trump administration carry out detentions and deportations, they have the legal authority to do that, and I’m not going to stand in their way.”

< South Florida’s U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson said she saw a “tent city” that could hold hundreds of people at the Miami immigration detention center on Thursday.

Following her visit to the Krome North Service Processing Center, Wilson told reporters she saw a structure that officials at the center told her had been built in 14 days to house hundreds of detained immigrants.

She referred to the structure as a tent city, but said the two-story building was made out of a harder material than cloth and that it had pipes for air conditioning.

“It’s going to get worse, so every time this facility gets crowded, in order to stay in compliance, they’re going to have to build another one, and it only takes 14 days,” Wilson said during a press conference following her visit to Krome.

“And so what they said to us was, as new detainees come in, they try to ship people out, but they can’t keep up with the pace because of the Laken Riley Act.”

The law Wilson mentioned requires immigration officials to detain immigrants arrested or charged with property crimes, among others.

More people could soon enter Krome following the launch this week of a large-scale operation to detain approximately 800 people in Florida in cooperation between federal authorities and state police, according to the Miami Herald.

Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami. (Photo courtesy of Alvaro Perpuly with U.S. Rep. Wilson’s office)

Democrat Wilson, who vowed to keep visiting the detention center, said she hasn’t seen overcrowding. However, she believes accounts of detainees, their families, and attorneys.

“This is not my first rodeo. I was down at Homestead when the children were there, and I’ve been to Krome before, and I’ve been to prisons all across Florida, especially female prisons,” Wilson said. “So, I know what they do. They take them on a field trip, so you won’t see who is actually in there, but they did admit that they are building a tent city.”

Miami-Dade Mayor Levine Cava wasn’t allowed to join the visit, Wilson said. Cava requested a tour of the detention center in an April 4 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Groups such as Americans for Immigrant Justice and the ACLU of Florida have called out conditions at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center, citing accounts of overcrowding, people sleeping on floors, poor sanitation, and two detainee deaths this year.

ICE did not respond to the Florida Phoenix’s questions about the structure and whether any detainees had been moved out of the center on Thursday.

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.”

Sheriff won’t go against federal judge

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.

The federal government is blaming a U.S. citizen for his arrest during a traffic stop in Leon County last week under a temporarily blocked state immigration law.

A senior official with the Department of Homeland Security said Monday that Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 20-year-old born in Georgia, was detained Wednesday after he told a Florida Highway Patrol trooper that he was in the country illegally.

“Immediately after learning the individual was a United States citizen, he was released,” a DHS senior official said in a statement Monday. “When individuals admit to committing a crime, like entering the country illegally, they will of course be detained while officers investigate.”

The trooper charged Lopez-Gomez following a traffic stop with illegally entering the state as an “unauthorized alien,” under a new state law that a federal judge temporarily suspended on April 4. Lopez-Gomez, released from Leon County jail Thursday evening, insists he told the trooper he was a U.S. citizen born in Georgia, handed over his Social Security card and Georgia ID, which meets federal security standards under the REAL ID Act of 2005.

The case garnered national attention following Florida Phoenix’s reporting on Thursday.

Differing accounts

The arrest report states that Lopez-Gomez said he was in the country illegally and had entered Florida illegally, but turned over his ID. However, the arrest report doesn’t mention the Social Security card. The trooper stopped the car Wednesday morning because the driver was going 78 mph in a 65 mph zone, according to the report. Lopez-Gomez was a passenger in the car with two others on his way to a flooring job from Cairo, Georgia, to Tallahassee.

Amilcar Sales-Lopez, a family member of the driver and boss of the crew, said he arrived at the scene on U.S. Highway 319 because the men called him as they were getting pulled over. Sales-Lopez told the two troopers that Lopez-Gomez was a U.S. citizen, but first had to hand over his Florida driver’s license, he said in a phone interview with Florida Phoenix.

“He said I had to verify who I was or that they would arrest me,” Sales-Lopez said in Spanish.

“They wanted to intimidate me,” he added.

The arrest report doesn’t mention that Sales-Lopez was present during the arrest.

The 20-year-old’s first language is Tzotzil, a Mayan language, his mother told the Phoenix. He lived in Mexico from the time he was 1-year-old until four years ago, when he returned to Georgia.

The Phoenix has requested video footage of the arrest from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. A spokesperson from the department repeated in a statement to the Phoenix Friday that Lopez-Gomez had stated he was in the country illegally and that he had a federal detainer issued on him.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a detainer asking the jail to hold Lopez-Gomez for 48 hours after his arrest. A Leon County judge cited the ICE hold as the reason she lacked jurisdiction to release Lopez-Gomez, even though she found no probable cause for the arrest after inspecting the Georgia birth certificate and Social Security card his mom brought to court.

The ICE hold states that DHS determined Lopez-Gomez could be deported based on biometric confirmation of his identity and his statements to an immigration officer or “reliable evidence.”

DHS did not respond when the Phoenix asked whether the arresting trooper had federal authorization to act as an immigration official. Approximately 1,400 troopers have completed 40 hours of training to question and arrest people they suspect are in the country without authorization.

Although Attorney General James Uthmeier argues the federal prohibition on enforcement of the law, SB 4C, doesn’t apply to law enforcement, he sent a memo Friday to FHP, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, police chiefs, and sheriffs stating that they shouldn’t arrest or detain anyone under the suspended law.

U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams extended her prohibition on the enforcement of Florida’s immigration law until April 29.

A federal judge brought up the arrest in Leon County of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a U.S. citizen born in Georgia, during a hearing Friday in which she extended her block of the new Florida immigration law until April 29.

U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams expressed frustration about the arrests of Lopez-Gomez and others, said an attorney representing the immigrants and groups suing the state.

At issue is Williams’ April 4 order temporarily barring enforcement of a law passed during a special session earlier this year making it a first-degree misdemeanor to illegally enter the state as an “unauthorized alien.”

A Florida Highway Patrol trooper’s arrest of Lopez-Gomez on Wednesday prompted national attention following Florida Phoenix’s reports that he was set to remain in jail because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had placed a 48-hour hold on him — even after a Leon County judge determined there had been no probable cause for the arrest.

Lopez-Gomez was released from Leon County jail on Thursday evening. The 20-year-old held his mother in a tight embrace and wept when they reunited.

“We appreciate that the federal courts have seen through this blatantly unconstitutional law, but the reality is that, without enforcement, it seems that local law enforcement and Florida Highway Patrol are continuing to ignore the judge and order,” said Miriam Fahsi Haskell, an attorney for Community Justice Project representing the plaintiffs, in a phone interview with the Phoenix. “The reality is that once a person is arrested under SB 4C and booked into jail, that person risks then having an ICE hold on them.”

Community Justice Project, the ACLU of Florida, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and Florida Legal Services attorneys are representing the plaintiffs: the Florida Immigrant Coalition, Farmworker Association of Florida Inc., and two women without permanent legal status.

David Matthew Costello, lead attorney representing Attorney General James Uthmeier, declined to comment, and a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office did not respond to the Phoenix’s questions. The other defendants are the statewide prosecutor and state attorneys.

Binding?

During the hearing at the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Florida in Miami, attorneys representing the state argued that law enforcement is not bound by Williams’ order, Fahsi Haskell said. Another hearing is set for April 29.

“The Court enters a [temporary restraining order] prohibiting Defendants and their officers, agents, employees, attorneys, and any person who are in active concert or participation with them from enforcing SB 4-C,” Williams’ order states.

Two other men were with Lopez-Gomez when the trooper stopped the car because the driver was going 78 mph in a 65 mph zone, according to the arrest report. The driver, Estiven Sales-Perez, and another passenger, Ismael Sales-Luis, were also charged with illegal entry as “unauthorized aliens.” The driver was also charged with driving without a license.

ICE has taken custody of Sales-Perez and is holding him in a Tallahassee field office, according to the online detainee locator system.

“Florida Highway Patrol will continue to work willingly with our federal partners to engage in interior enforcement of immigration law,” a spokesperson for the agency wrote in a statement to the Phoenix.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried called the arrest a kidnapping.

“Where does the lawlessness of this administration stop? If this can happen to an American-born citizen, it can happen to any of us,” she said in a statement.

An official with Homeland Security Investigations in Tallahassee took Lopez-Gomez, a 20-year-old born in Georgia, to a Wendy’s near the jail, where he reunited with his mother after spending more than 24 hours under arrest following a traffic stop in which he was a passenger.

Lopez-Gomez appeared shellshocked and spoke quietly as he discussed what happened when a Florida Highway Patrol trooper pulled over the car he was in on his way to work from Cairo, Georgia, to Tallahassee. The trooper made the traffic stop because the driver was going 78 mph in a 65 mph zone, according to the arrest report.

“I feel fine leaving that place, I felt bad in there. They didn’t give us anything to eat all day yesterday,” he told the Florida Phoenix in Spanish. He added that he had asked the trooper who made the arrest why he was being taken into custody, because he was a U.S. citizen.

His mother, also in Spanish, said the days ahead will be tough for the family and worries that Lopez-Gomez and his sisters will live in fear of deportation despite having been born in the country. She told the Phoenix she planned to sue over her son’s arrest.

“I don’t have a way to pay all the people who are helping us. People from other states have called us, and we don’t have a way to pay them; we can only thank them,” Gomez-Perez said.

The pair didn’t reunite until the evening, after Lopez-Gomez’s first court appearance earlier in the day. Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans ruled Thursday morning that she lacked jurisdiction to release him because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had formally asked the jail to hold him for 48 hours.

After Riggans’ inspection of his Social Security card and birth certificate, which an advocate waved in the courtroom, the judge said she found no probable cause for the charge.

“In looking at it, and feeling it, and holding it up to the light, the court can clearly see the watermark to show that this is indeed an authentic document,” Riggans said.

The arrest record the trooper filed states that Lopez-Gomez had said he was in the country illegally but that he had handed over his ID. There was no mention of the Social Security card on the arrest report. However, Lopez-Gomez told the Phoenix he had shown the trooper a copy of his Social Security card and Georgia state ID.

The HSI agent who took Lopez-Gomez to Wendy’s directed questions to a spokesperson, who didn’t respond to the Phoenix’s request for comment or questions as of this publication.

After the reunion with his mom, Lopez-Gomez returned to the parking lot of the jail, where 30 protesters had been demanding his release. They met him with cheers and hugs.

Lopez-Gomez will have to return to the Leon County Courthouse on May 6. He was charged under a recently passed law that a federal judge has temporarily barred the state from enforcing, further calling into question the validity of his arrest, the charge, and detention.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed SB 4-C into law on Feb. 14, and U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams blocked its enforcement on April 4.

The law makes it a misdemeanor for undocumented immigrants over age 18 to “knowingly” enter Florida “after entering the United States by eluding or avoiding examination or inspection by immigration officers.”

Two other men who were in the car with Lopez-Gomez, the driver and another passenger, also made their first appearances on the same charge on Thursday. The driver was also charged with driving without a license.

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen, was being held in the Leon County Jail Thursday, charged with illegally entering Florida as an “unauthorized alien” — even as a supporter waved his U.S. birth certificate in court.

The man, who was arrested Wednesday after a traffic stop in which he was a passenger on his way to his job in Tallahassee, is set to remain in jail for the next 48 hours, waiting for federal immigration officials to pick him up, even though Leon County authorities dropped his first-degree misdemeanor charge.

His mother, Sebastiana Gomez-Perez, burst into tears at the sight of her son, who appeared virtually for his first hearing at the Leon County Courthouse. She left the courtroom distraught because she could do nothing to help her son, who was born and lives in Grady County, Georgia.

“I wanted to tell them, ‘Where are you going to take him? He is from here,'” his mother told the Phoenix in Spanish moments after exiting the courtroom. “I felt immense helplessness because I couldn’t do anything, and I am desperate to get my son out of there.”

She continued through tears: “It hurts so much. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans held Lopez-Gomez’s birth certificate up to the light after community advocate Silvia Alba silently waved the document in the courtroom.

“In looking at it, and feeling it, and holding it up to the light, the court can clearly see the watermark to show that this is indeed an authentic document,” Riggans said.

Based on her inspection of his birth certificate and Social Security card, Riggans said she found no probable cause for the charge. However, the state prosecutor insisted the court lacked jurisdiction over Lopez-Gomez’s release because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had formally asked the jail to hold him.

“This court does not have any jurisdiction other than what I’ve already done,” Riggans said.

Riggans said she was very sorry as Lopez-Gomez’s mother left.

‘I can’t do anything for their brother’

The 20-year-old’s first language is Tzotzil, a Mayan language, and he took a long pause when he was asked if he wanted to hire a private attorney or obtain a public defender. He lived in Mexico from the time he was 1-year-old until four years ago, when he returned to Georgia, his mother told the Phoenix.

“He hasn’t committed a crime for them to hold him, that’s what I don’t understand. I’m feeling bad because my daughters are asking me how their brother is. It hurts because I can’t do anything for their brother,” she said.

At issue is a recently passed law that a federal judge has temporarily barred the state from enforcing, further calling into question the validity of his arrest, the charge, and detention. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed SB 4-C into law on Feb. 14, and U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams blocked its enforcement on April 4.

The law makes it a misdemeanor for undocumented immigrants over age 18 to “knowingly” enter Florida “after entering the United States by eluding or avoiding examination or inspection by immigration officers.”

Two other men who were in the car with Lopez-Gomez, the driver and another passenger, also had their first appearances on the same charges on Thursday. The driver was also charged with driving without a license.

Wednesday marked the second time Lopez-Gomez has been arrested. The Grady County Sheriff’s office took him into custody on Sunday and charged him with driving under the influence, his mother said. ICE also requested that the Georgia jail hold Lopez-Gomez, but he won release after his family showed officials his birth certificate and Social Security card, Gomez-Perez said.

Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, met Gomez-Perez at the courthouse. He said Lopez-Gomez’s case is exactly what his organization has been warning lawmakers would happen.

“It was just really sad seeing the mother distraught over her son, and the fact that she acknowledged that this is very likely a case of racial profiling against a U.S. citizen who can’t speak English,” he said in a phone interview with the Phoenix.

The Georgia Recorder, a partner of Florida Phoenix, has submitted a public records request to obtain more information about his arrest Sunday. This is a developing story and will be updated.

With no debate, the House voted 111-1 on Wednesday to prohibit unelected state employees from conducting campaign-type activities during working hours and require agency heads to live in Tallahassee.

Similar legislation is advancing in the Senate, but Gov. Ron DeSantis has signaled that he will veto the proposal if it reaches his desk.

The governor has targeted Melbourne Republican Rep. Debbie Mayfield’s bill, HB 1445, during press conferences this week, saying it would become law “over his veto pen.”

State employees couldn’t participate in political campaigns, solicit contributions, or use their authority to influence people’s votes under the bill. Those prohibitions would apply both to candidate and issue campaigns, and employees could face first-degree misdemeanor penalties if they do so.

The sole vote against HB 1445 came from Delray Beach Republican Rep. Mike Caruso, the only House lawmaker standing with the governor this year.

Mayfield referred to her proposal on the House floor as good public policy. HB 1445 makes “several changes with the goal of ensuring that our elected officials and our appointed officials are fully committed and focused on their primary duties of serving the state of Florida,” the sponsor said.

DeSantis hasn’t publicly addressed the anti-politicking aspect of the legislation. Instead, he has focused on the requirement that his appointees live in the state capital by Oct. 1, the location of all agency headquarters.

“They’re pulling it out of their rear ends and trying to jam it through this process. Over my veto pen,” DeSantis said, likening Tallahassee to the D.C. swamp.

State employees’ involvement in politics

The involvement by state officials in DeSantis’ campaign against the ballot initiatives to legalize recreational marijuana and restore abortion access prompted legal challenges last year and has come under renewed scrutiny this legislative session.

State House deepens probe of Hope Florida Foundation’s political activity

A House panel is investigating the transfer of legal settlement money through the Hope Florida Foundation to campaign against the marijuana initiative. Then-DeSantis’ chief of staff, now state attorney general, James Uthmeier organized the money transfer to the anti-pot committee, Keep Florida Clean, which he ran, according to evidence unearthed by reporters and a House committee.

Uthmeier played down any suggestion of wrongdoing during a press conference Monday, saying there’s “not a problem.”

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo appeared in press conferences against the marijuana constitutional amendment and got sued over the health department’s letters threatening broadcasters that aired ads on behalf of the pro-abortion-rights campaign, Amendment 4.

Additionally, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration’s creation of a webpage stating that Amendment 4 “threatens women’s safety” and its then-secretary Jason Weida’s promotion of it prompted a complaint to the Florida Supreme Court, which ultimately sided with the DeSantis administration because the plaintiff lacked standing to sue.

Aside from the DeSantis administration’s use of state resources against the ballot initiatives last year, state employees in the governor’s office called lobbyists to request donations for a political committee aligned with DeSantis as he and First Lady Casey DeSantis hinted that she was considering a run for governor, according to NBC News.

The Senate version, SB 1760, doesn’t include the provision against state employees’ involvement in campaign activities, and needs to go through one more committee before it could be eligible for a floor vote.

Both bills would require university trustees and members of the Board of Governors that oversees public universities to be U.S. citizens and live in Florida, unless they graduated from a state higher education institution.

Mayfield, sponsor of the House bill, won a suit against the Florida Department of State Secretary Cord Byrd, a DeSantis appointee, after Byrd attempted to block Mayfield from appearing on the ballot for a special election in the state Senate district seat she previously held. The Republican representative won the primary for the Brevard County district with 60.81% of the vote on April 1.

The general election is June 10 and Mayfield has resigned from the House effective June 9.

First Lady Casey DeSantis kept the speculation alive that she will run to succeed Gov. Ron DeSantis during a discussion at a conservative summit in Maryland on Friday.

“We’ll see,” the first lady said, responding to a question about the campaign talk and referring to her husband as a “GOAT” (greatest of all time) in the executive post.

Byron Donalds is running for governor. With Trump’s backing, can anyone stop him?

The governor added that the late conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh once said Casey DeSantis should be governor. The couple spoke about what lessons the country can learn from conservativism in Florida during a panel discussion at the National Review Institute’s summit in National Harbor.

“So, all I’m saying is, my view is she’d be great at whatever she does, but I’ve been the most conservative governor in America,” Ron DeSantis said. “I’ve delivered the most conservative results, and I think I’d say she would be as conservative or more conservative than me.”

The first lady would face obstacles in the 2026 primary against U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, whom Trump is backing. Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, whom DeSantis succeeded, said the Fox News Brian Kilmeade Show that Donalds would win the race.

“I think he’ll be a phenomenal governor. I think he’s gonna win. I’m glad that Trump endorsed him,” Scott said on the radio show.

As Florida gears up its deputization of state troopers to take part in immigration enforcement, the Highway Patrol can’t hire enough troopers to meet its workforce target, Dave Kerner, director of the Department of Highway and Motor Safety, told a House committee Tuesday.

Republican lawmakers questioned Kerner about the $10.3 million the agency spends on overtime pay for troopers and its efforts to fill the 729 agency-wide vacancies, 138 of which are for sworn troopers. The agency was the first to enroll in an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, authorizing state troopers to question and detain people living in the country without authorization.

“Now, running a business, if my overtime is $10 million, I think I got a problem,” Dade City Republican Randy Maggard said during the House Transportation and Economic Development Budget Subcommittee meeting.

Despite profiling concerns, more law agencies are joining street-level immigration enforcement

Kerner said the agency has had difficulty hiring troopers, whose starting salary is $54,075, the third lowest in the country for a trooper or state police officer, according to FHMVS’ budget request for the next fiscal year. The agency is asking lawmakers for $12 million for salary increases.

“The genesis of the concern here is that we lose more troopers than we can hire … because of the lack of pay, the lack of a career development plan,” Kerner said. “It is much more efficient for a trooper to come and work at the Florida Highway Patrol, get trained, and then three years later leave to a better-paying department. We have to supplement that vacancy rate with overtime.”

The average length of service for troopers is six years, according to the budget request. Lawmakers in the Joint Legislative Budget Commission gave the agency $7.6 million in September for hiring staff in the Division of Motorist Services, law enforcement dispatchers and support staff, and 70 troopers.

“I don’t know that you’ll see the vacancy rate lower in a meaningful way through the end of this fiscal year given the resources that we currently have,” Kerner said.

All sheriffs and several municipalities will also cooperate with ICE through the federal 287(g) task force model program that require the officers to go through 40 hours of training on immigration laws and civil rights as Gov. Ron DeSantis pushes for the state to become a leader in internal immigration enforcement.