Florida asks Supreme Court to reinstate immigration law as lower courts weigh constitutionality

The Florida Attorney General asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to allow the state to enforce a new immigration law that makes it a misdemeanor for people living in the U.S. illegally to enter the state.

The petition is the latest in a months-long battle between Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and district U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams. Last week Williams held Uthmeier in contempt for instructing officers to continue enforcing the new law despite the judge’s orders to stop enforcement until the courts decide whether the law is constitutional.

The attorney general’s appeal to the Supreme Court said the state has a right to use the law to protect itself from the harm of illegal immigration. The legislation tracks federal law and the injunction shouldn’t cover every officer in the state “who never had their day in court,” the appeal argued.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the legislation into law in February as part of President Donald Trump’s push to crack down on illegal immigration, though many of Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts are mired in battles with federal judges.

Immigrants rights groups filed lawsuits 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 that the new legislation violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution by encroaching on federal duties.

Williams issued a temporary restraining order and injunction that barred the enforcement of the new law statewide in April. The attorney general’s office then unsuccessfully petitioned the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to override that decision.

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’t prevent police officers and deputies from enforcing the law.

“Again, he may well be right that the district court’s order is impermissibly broad,” the appellate judges said of Uthmeier. “But that does not warrant what seems to have been at least a veiled threat not to obey it.”

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Riddle reported from Montgomery, Alabama. Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.