Fla. AG to rebuff judge who ordered halt to state immigration enforcement: ‘The court has overstepped’

EXCLUSIVE: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier will rebut a judge’s demand that his office order state law enforcement to halt enforcement of a state immigration law she ordered paused under suspicion of unconstitutionality.

The law allows for misdemeanor charges against illegal immigrants who enter Florida and hope to avoid federal immigration officials.

“The judge wants me to put my stamp of approval on an order prohibiting all state law enforcement from enforcing Florida’s immigration laws when no law enforcement are party to the lawsuit,” he said, as the ACLU’s suit is being adjudicated before Obama-appointed Miami federal judge Kathleen Williams.

“I’m just not going to do that. We believe the court has overstepped and lacks jurisdiction there, and I will not tell law enforcement to stop fulfilling their constitutional duties,” Uthmeier, who is being threatened with contempt actions, told Fox News Digital.

“I do not believe an AG should be held in contempt for respecting the rule of law and appropriate separation of powers. The ACLU is dead set on obstructing President Donald Trump’s efforts to detain and deport illegals, and we are going to fight back. We will vigorously defend our laws and advance President Trump’s agenda on illegal immigration.”

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Immigrant rights protesters, left, and FL AG James Uthmeier, right. (Getty)

The lawsuit that spurred the injunction alleges Florida’s law violates the Supremacy Clause that designates federal laws and authorities as taking precedence over state laws.

Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, told the AP that politicians in Tallahassee “tried to turn fear into policy and made it a crime simply to exist as an immigrant in this state.”

“The court rightly reminded them: immigration enforcement is a job for the federal government, not a political weapon for states to use,” Jackson said in a statement.

On Wednesday, Uthmeier asked the court to let FHP continue to enforce the law, after Williams was reportedly enraged that arrests continued to occur as the law awaits appeal in Atlanta’s 11th Circuit.

FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TO STOP ENFORCING NEW IMMIGRATION LAW

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“That law does nothing more than exercise Florida’s inherent sovereign authority to protect its citizens by aiding the enforcement of federal immigration law,” Uthmeier wrote Wednesday.

That circumstance was precipitated by an April 23 memo from Uthmeier to FHP, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, sheriffs and police chiefs, in which he wrote that Williams was incorrect in asserting all Florida law enforcement agencies were bound by the order.

“I explained that I believed her after-the-fact expansion of her order to nonparties was wrong, and that my office would be arguing as much in short order. Today, my office filed a brief explaining why her order cannot possibly restrain Florida’s law enforcement agencies from enforcing Florida Statutes Sections 811.102 and 811.103. We will continue to argue that position—including on appeal as soon as possible,” Uthmeier wrote in the memo, obtained by Fox News Digital.

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FL AG James Uthmeier, left and US Marshal Greg Leljedal, right (Office of Florida Attorney General)

Uthmeier told the agencies that Williams ordered him to inform them of the “evolving scope” of the order, but added he cannot prevent them from enforcing the new law.

Williams said Tuesday she planned to issue a preliminary injunction against the statute, adding that she was “surprised and shocked” by Uthmeier’s actions. 

“What I am offended by is someone suggesting you don’t have to follow my order, that it’s not legitimate,” Williams said.

A source familiar with the situation said the memo was sent after FHP was added to the court order despite plaintiffs not expressly including the police force in their original filing; suggesting that state police would not be party to any injunction in that case.

If Uthmeier were to be brought before the judge, the court would likely need the assistance of U.S. Marshal Greg Leljedal of the Northern District of Florida.

A Thursday tweet from Uthmeier showed the two men smiling in his office, with the AG commenting on their “great meeting.”

Fox News Digital’s Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.