Opponents of a new law that targets undocumented immigrants who enter Florida argued Thursday that state Attorney General James Uthmeier should be held in contempt of court because of a letter he sent to police after a judge blocked the law.
Lawyers for the opponents, who are challenging the law in federal court, argued in a 26-page filing that Uthmeier’s conduct surrounding an April 23 letter was “quintessential contempt of court.” They accused Uthmeier of signaling to police officers that they could make arrests under the law after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams had issued a temporary restraining order to block enforcement.
“It is simply not acceptable that, notwithstanding this court’s order and his ethical duties, the attorney general encouraged arrests that he fully understood were specifically prohibited,” the lawyers for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, the Farmworker Association of Florida and two individual plaintiffs wrote.
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The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit April 2 in Miami challenging the constitutionality of the law, which the Legislature passed during a February special session. The law created state crimes for undocumented immigrants who enter or re-enter Florida.
Williams on April 4 issued a temporary restraining order to block enforcement of the law and extended the restraining order on April 18. Ultimately, she issued a longer-lasting preliminary injunction on April 29, saying the law was likely unconstitutional.
In the April 29 ruling, Williams also ordered Uthmeier to “show cause” why he should not be held in contempt or sanctioned because of an April 23 letter he sent. She cited arrests that continued after the temporary restraining order and quoted from Uthmeier’s letter, which she said included an effort to “counsel law enforcement” that they were not restrained from enforcing the law.
Uthmeier’s lawyers, in a May 12 response, said he complied with the temporary restraining order by not enforcing the law (SB 4-C) and notifying law-enforcement agencies about the temporary restraining order. It said Uthmeier was free to express his disagreement with Williams’ decision in the letter.
“The attorney general has consistently abided by the court’s order to cease enforcing (the law),” Uthmeier’s lawyers wrote. “Nowhere does the TRO (expressly or impliedly) require the attorney general to refrain from sharing his views about the order with law enforcement.”
But in the filing Thursday, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Uthmeier went beyond expressing his views about the temporary restraining order. They said the April 23 letter came after an April 18 notice that Uthmeier sent to police indicating the temporary restraining order prevented them from enforcing the law. Williams had ordered the April 18 notice.
“Considered objectively and in the context of the earlier (April 18) letter, the attorney general’s second letter plainly undermined the notice he was directed to provide, and invited arrests which he knew would be violations of this court’s order,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued. “That is quintessential contempt of court.”
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In ordering Uthmeier to show cause about why he should not be held in contempt, Williams wrote that Uthmeier sent the April 18 letter notifying law-enforcement agencies to refrain from enforcing the law but then sent the April 23 letter “reversing his prior directive.”
“It said, ‘I cannot prevent you from enforcing (the law), where there remains no judicial order that properly restrains you from doing so,’” Williams wrote. “Aside from the clear misstatement that there is ‘no judicial order’ that restrains law enforcement from arresting individuals pursuant to S.B. 4-C, AG Uthmeier’s assessment that the order does not ‘properly’ restrain them demonstrates his active effort to counsel law enforcement.”
But in the May 12 response to the show cause order, Uthmeier’s lawyers said Williams’ reading of the April 23 letter “relies on one portion of one sentence, rather than reading (the) letter as a whole and in the context of what preceded it: the April 18 letter” and a legal brief that also was filed April 23.
“In the April 23 letter, the attorney general expressly reiterated the court’s conclusion that the TRO ‘bound’ the letter’s recipients,” Uthmeier’s lawyers wrote. “He explained — as he had in the April 18 letter — that he believed the court’s conclusion as to permissible scope of the TRO was ‘wrong,’ and he noted that the April 18 letter had promised his ‘office would be arguing as much in short order.’”
The plaintiffs have alleged the law violates what is known as the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution because immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. In issuing the April 29 preliminary injunction, Williams said the law likely was preempted by federal immigration authority.
Uthmeier’s office has appealed the preliminary injunction to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In addition to disputing that the law is preempted by federal immigration authority, Uthmeier has contended that law-enforcement officers are not defendants in the lawsuit — which was filed against Uthmeier and local state attorneys — and, as result, should not be bound by orders about enforcement.
Williams has scheduled a hearing next Thursday on the contempt issue.
