MIAMI – There was a protest Thursday outside of the federal courthouse in Miami, as the Florida attorney general faced contempt of court accusations related to a new state law impacting undocumented adults.
Carmen Gonzalez, a protester who sided with the organizations advocating for immigrants’ rights, said she was outside of the Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. U.S. Courthouse along North Miami Avenue to send a message to lawmakers.
“I’m here because I want to remind our politicians that promoting division, fear, and hatred is not the American way,” Gonzalez said.
The group of protesters started to arrive hours before a hearing, as Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier faced the contempt of court accusation over a federal judicial order issued on April 4.
The federal court order was the result of a class action lawsuit seeking to stop the enforcement of a new Florida law that state Republican legislators passed earlier this year with Gov. Ron DeSantis’s support to make it a first-degree misdemeanor for an undocumented adult to enter the state.
Related document: Read the 14-page order
Uthmeier was not present during the federal court hearing at 2 p.m., and his attorney did not learn if the judge had decided whether or not he was in contempt of court for disobeying a federal judicial order.
But if the court later finds him in civil contempt, Uthmeier could face fines or a Florida Bar review. Criminal contempt could result in jail time. Attorney David Weinstein, a partner with Miami-based Jones Walker LLP, said a judge can also refer the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“Criminal contempt is a direct violation of a court order and you’re doing it willfully and with the intent to violate the order,” Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, said.
Related page: Federal courts’ contempt power
On April 2, the Florida Immigrant Coalition, a Miami-based nonprofit organization, filed a class action lawsuit seeking a court order to stop the enforcement of the new Florida Senate Bill 4-C, which provides criminal penalties for undocumented migrants.
Uthmeier, DeSantis’s former chief of staff, is responsible for upholding and enforcing the state law and in doing so may have defied U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams’s temporary restraining order on the new state law.
“SB C-4’s mandatory detention provision limits federal law enforcement discretion to recommend pre-trial release and obstructs federal courts’ ability to conduct proceedings requiring defendants’ presence,” Williams wrote in her order.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs included a fearful married mother who is an agricultural worker living in Florida. After she was deported, the undocumented woman returned to the U.S. “without inspection” in 2014 and had four U.S.-citizen children, including a boy “who has a disability,” records show.
“Color me surprised and shocked,” Williams said in April about the perceived defiance. “Do I need to put a ribbon on it?”
The case, also involving the Apopka-based Farmworker Association of Florida, comes as the population of undocumented migrants was set to increase nationwide.
At President Donald Trump’s direction, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revoked the temporary humanitarian parole for Cubans, Venezuelans, and Haitians living in the U.S.
The demands on Homeland Security detentions also increased after Trump designated members of six cartels and two gangs as global terrorists in February.
With the lists of deportations and detentions getting longer, DeSantis welcomed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service delegating duties to law enforcement in Florida.
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In this environment, and despite the federal judge’s order, Uthmeier went on the record saying that he could not prevent law enforcement agencies from enforcing Florida SB 4-C.
“It is my view that no lawful, legitimate order currently impedes your agencies from continuing to enforce,” Uthmeier wrote in a letter on April 23.
During the hearing, Williams said Uthmeier’s letter “can be read as inviting” law enforcement to ignore her order and prompt “chaos.” She also referenced Uthmeier’s statements on May 6 to Newsmax that he was not going to “rubber stamp” her order.
Attorney Jesse Panuccio, who represented Uthmeier, claimed the Florida attorney general did not enforce the state law, there wasn’t evidence that a law enforcement officer had acted on the letter, and equated his statements on Newsmax to “puffery that has been part of our politics since the dawn of the Republic.”
A Tampa Bay Times investigation published Wednesday reported there were about two dozen related arrests before April 18. Cody Wofsy, of the American Civil Liberties Union, expressed mistrust.
“The attorney general said today that he didn’t believe that there have been any arrests made since that letter,” Wofsy said. “We hope that’s true.”
The plaintiff’s attorneys with the ACLU, Americans For Immigrant Justice, and the Community Justice Project argued the letter was evidence of an attempt to evade a federal order that he did not like.
“There needs to be an appreciation and abiding by court order, or else this all becomes anarchy,” Williams said in court.
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Earlier this month in Tampa, DeSantis praised Uthmeier saying he was “right” on the law.
“He has the courage to stand and do what’s right, even knowing that he’s going to get blowback,” DeSantis told reporters.
On a position that Trump shares, DeSantis also added that “unelected lifetime-appointed judges” should not “try to enact policy.”
Paul Chavez, of the Americans for Immigrant Justice, a social services organization based in Miami-Dade County, disagreed and said the state was doing a “disservice” to law enforcement agencies.
“It puts them in a pretty awful spot,” Chavez said. “If they arrest somebody under a law that is held unconditional, then that is an unlawful arrest and now they are exposed to civil liability for unlawfully arresting someone.”
Florida appealed Williams’s order, but a ruling was not yet back from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Read the letter by the Florida AG