{"id":15356,"date":"2025-07-17T03:11:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T03:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/15356\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T03:11:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T03:11:17","slug":"florida-wrongly-charges-2-people-under-halted-immigration-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/15356\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida wrongly charges 2 people under halted immigration law"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) \u2014 At least two people have been wrongly charged under a Florida law<\/a> that outlaws people living in the U.S. illegally from entering the state since a federal judge halted its enforcement, according to a report Florida\u2019s attorney general is required to file as punishment for defying the judge\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

Both men were arrested in late May by deputies in northeast Florida\u2019s St. Johns County, more than a month after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami issued an order freezing the enforcement of the state statute. The law makes it a misdemeanor for people who are in the U.S. without legal permission to enter Florida by eluding immigration officials.<\/p>\n

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in his report filed at the beginning of July that he only became aware of the two cases at the end of June after requesting information from state and local law enforcement. As punishment for flouting her order and being found in civil contempt<\/a>, the judge requires Uthmeier to file bimonthly reports about whether any arrests, detentions or law enforcement actions have been made under the law. <\/p>\n

On May 29, St. Johns County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputies arrested a man with an active immigration detainer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another man on counts of illegal entry and driving without a valid driver\u2019s license, according to the status report.<\/p>\n

As corrective action, the charge involving the man with the ICE detainer was dismissed in state court, and prosecutors filed a motion that was granted to vacate the charge for illegal entry in the second case, R.J. Larizza, state attorney for the jurisdiction that covers St. Johns County, said in a separate filing.<\/p>\n

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the legislation<\/a> into law in February as part of President Donald Trump\u2019s crackdown on illegal immigration.<\/p>\n

Immigrants rights groups filed a lawsuit on behalf of two unnamed, Florida-based immigrants living in the U.S. illegally shortly after the bill was signed into law. The lawsuit said the new legislation violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution by encroaching on federal duties.<\/p>\n

Williams issued a temporary restraining order and injunction that barred the enforcement of the new law statewide in April. The attorney general\u2019s office then unsuccessfully petitioned the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to override that decision. Uthmeier also petitioned without success<\/a> the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.<\/p>\n

After Williams issued her original order, Uthmeier sent a memo to state and local law enforcement officers telling them to refrain from enforcing the law, even though he disagreed with the injunction. But five days later, he sent a memo saying the judge was legally wrong and that he couldn\u2019t prevent police officers and deputies from enforcing the law.<\/p>\n

The judge last month found Uthmeier to be in civil contempt of her ruling. Uthmeier on Wednesday appealed the judge\u2019s contempt order.<\/p>\n

Besides championing the new law, Florida officials have helped Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown with the construction of a new immigration detention center<\/a> named \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d at an isolated airstrip in the Florida Everglades. DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday that a request has been developed for proposals for a second migrant detention facility at Camp Blanding in northeast Florida but no work has begun. <\/p>\n

Alligator Alcatraz has \u201cgrown quickly\u201d but is not yet at the 3,000 to 4,000 detainees originally envisioned, DeSantis said in Tampa.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m willing to do Blanding once Alligator Alcatraz is filled,\u201d the governor said. \u201cOnce there\u2019s a demand, then we would be able to go for Camp Blanding.\u201d <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press journalist Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) \u2014 At least two people have been wrongly charged under a Florida law that outlaws…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,14597,12,2822,2808,2820,793,790,8272,14596,4381,3,111,2819,795,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-15356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-criminal-punishment","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-fl-state-wire","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-florida-state-government","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-immigration","16":"tag-james-uthmeier","17":"tag-kathleen-williams","18":"tag-law-enforcement","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-ron-desantis","22":"tag-u-s-news","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}