Two men last weekend were wrongly charged under a far-reaching Florida immigration law that’s currently suspended by a judicial order, according to a Monday report from the state attorney general’s office.
Both men were charged in separate instances in Bradenton under a Florida law that outlaws people living in the U.S. illegally from entering the state, even though a federal judge earlier this year said the law could not be enforced while it’s challenged in court.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier disclosed the latest arrests in a report he has been forced to file with the court twice a month ever since he was found to be in civil contempt for telling officers they could ignore the judge's order.
Those reports have shown that some Florida officers are continuing to wrongly charge people under the halted law, including two people in June in northeast Florida, two people in July in central Florida and two people in August along Florida's Gulf Coast.
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In the most recent cases, a man was pulled over Saturday after a Bradenton officer saw loose branches and unsecured equipment in the back of the man's truck. The man told the officer he had an expired driver's license. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sergeant confirmed by phone that the man was in the U.S. illegally and issued an immigration detainer for him, the report said.
In the second case, an officer responded on Sunday to a report of blocked traffic due to an engine block that had fallen out of a vehicle. The driver told the officer he didn't have a driver's license. The officer contacted ICE, and the man admitted to the ICE officer by phone that he was in the U.S. illegally, officials said. ICE then issued an immigration detainer for the man, according to the report.
Both men faced a state charge of illegal entry, but those will be dropped by prosecutors. The man from Saturday's arrest was also charged with driving with an expired driver's license, and the man from Sunday's arrest was charged with driving without a valid driver's license, the report said.
Florida's new immigration law made it a misdemeanor for people who are in the U.S. without legal permission to enter the state by eluding immigration officials. But U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami issued a temporary restraining order and injunction in April, freezing the enforcement of the state statute.
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.
As punishment for flouting her order and being found in civil contempt, the judge requires Uthmeier to file bimonthly reports about whether any arrests, detentions or law enforcement actions have been made under the law.
A footnote in Monday's report suggests both arrests over the weekend were made by the same officer. The footnote said local prosecutors would tell the Bradenton Police Department to remind the officer about the judge's injunction.
The state of Florida has asked an appellate court to vacate, or at the very least narrow, Williams' injunction, arguing in a court filing two weeks ago that the Florida law doesn't infringe on the federal government's authority to decide who may enter the U.S.
“Once the federal government has made that decision, an unlawfully present alien may not enter or remain in Florida,” attorneys for Florida wrote. “Who qualifies as an unauthorized alien, and what constitutes eluding or avoiding immigration inspection, remains a question of federal law.”
