{"id":162530,"date":"2026-02-20T12:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/162530\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T12:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:56:08","slug":"deegan-administration-feeling-confident-ahead-of-ags-criminal-subpoena-deadline-over-employees-ice-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/162530\/","title":{"rendered":"Deegan administration feeling \u2018confident\u2019 ahead of AG\u2019s criminal subpoena deadline over employee\u2019s ICE video"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The City of Jacksonville said Thursday that it is feeling \u201cconfident\u201d as the deadline to comply with the Florida attorney general\u2019s \u201ccriminal subpoena\u201d nears.<\/p>\n

Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s administration has until Friday at 2 p.m. to submit all of the documents requested by Attorney General James Uthmeier on Monday. Uthmeier said the goal of the subpoena is to determine if one of the city\u2019s employees may have impeded immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

RELATED | Florida AG sends criminal subpoena to Deegan administration, targets employee put on leave after posting ICE video<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s evidence that her administration coordinated to impede immigration enforcement and harbor criminal aliens, we will hold them accountable!\u201d Uthmeier wrote on \u201cX\u201d.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier referred to a Jacksonville employee who posted a video talking about reports of increased presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents across the area last month. <\/p>\n

Deegan placed Yanira \u201cYaya\u201d Cardona, the city\u2019s Hispanic Outreach Coordinator, on a brief administrative leave for violating city policy<\/a>, but also said \u201cnothing she said was illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE | Deegan says employee was placed on leave for policy violation, not for discussing reported increased ICE presence<\/a><\/p>\n

Uthmeier was in Green Cove Springs on Monday for an announcement related to a \u201csextortion\u201d case and was asked about the announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a situation here where a city official was out there, you know, publicly alerting people to ICE locations, interfering with immigration enforcement efforts. This is the State of Florida. It\u2019s not Minnesota,\u201d Uthmeier said during the news conference. \u201cThere\u2019s an obligation to use best efforts to facilitate, help the federal government carry out their law enforcement efforts. We\u2019re a rule of law State. We believe in that; we stand by that, and if there\u2019s evidence that, you know, the city as a whole — I know, the mayor said nothing wrong happened here, we disagree with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uthmeier said his office is looking to see if there was a coordinated effort by Cardona to work with other city employees or outside NGOs to try to thwart ICE\u2019s efforts to enforce the law. If he finds that was the case, he said his office will hold the \u201cwrongdoers accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the subpoena issued Friday and obtained by News4JAX, the attorney general is trying to get emails, text messages and documents from Cardona, specifically those stories on city-issued cell phones, or personal devices she used to do work. <\/p>\n

A specific request asks for all emails, calls, or texts containing the words \u201cNazi,\u201d \u201cGestapo,\u201d \u201cstormtrooper,\u201d or \u201cterrorize.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, a day before the subpoena\u2019s deadline, the chief communications officer for Deegan\u2019s office sent News4JAX a statement reiterating that they are fully cooperating with the Office of Statewide Prosecution.<\/p>\n

Read the full statement below<\/p>\n

As we said in our statement last Monday, we are fully cooperating with the Office of Statewide Prosecution, and we are confident that a review of the facts will show the administration acted lawfully, as we always do. The records they requested will be provided tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Phil Perry, Chief Communications Officer<\/p>\n

The attorney general is also looking for any mention of Jennifer Cruz in Cardona\u2019s communications. Cruz stands accused of punching a FHP trooper and kicking an ICE officer during an incident on Beach Blvd<\/a>. <\/p>\n

On Jan. 15, Deegan addressed the political blowback after both Uthmeier and Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly criticized Cardona.<\/p>\n

Deegan, a Democrat, said the content of Cardona\u2019s video was well within bounds, and that she was \u201csimply giving information\u201d that \u201ccame from a place of compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n

She went on to say that she values Jacksonville\u2019s immigrant community and, if she asks citizens to comply with the city\u2019s partnership with ICE, she expects ICE agents to follow the law as well.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The City of Jacksonville said Thursday that it is feeling \u201cconfident\u201d as the deadline to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5890,1039,1877,1841,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-162530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-donna-deegan","tag-duval-county","tag-ice","tag-immigration","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}