State AG gets tongue-lashing from appeals court over 'veiled threat' to defy judge's order stopping immigration arrests
Source: Law & Crime
Jun 8th, 2025, 4:13 pm
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit delivered a sharp rebuke on Friday to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier over the state’s new immigration enforcement law — scolding him for making “a veiled threat” to defy a judge’s order blocking local immigrant arrests, while ruling to leave the order in place.
“Whether he is right or wrong about his control over other law-enforcement officials, the Attorney General has not made a ‘strong showing’ on this issue,” wrote Judges Embry Kidd, Kevin Newsom and Jill Pryor in a 16-page ruling. The appeals court denied a request for a stay made by Uthmeier and his office in a May 7 motion, which claimed the state’s new immigration enforcement law (SB 4-C) was being followed “to aid the United States in curbing illegal immigration within the state’s borders.”
Uthmeier’s motion claimed Florida’s new law “tracks federal law to a tee” and “retains federal-law defenses,” per the filing. It says “nothing of who should be admitted or removed from the country,” according to Uthmeier’s office. The 11th Circuit asked what the reason would be for pursuing local charges over federal, writing that Uthmeier failed to explain this.
“The Attorney General … says that vindicating ‘the State’s power to stem the tsunami of effects from illegal immigration is critical,'” the court noted. “But even assuming that ‘effects from illegal immigration’ is an irreparable harm, we are not sure how this particular law could be a decisive part of mitigating that harm. Federal officials of course already enforce immigration law — and many Florida law-enforcement agencies have entered into agreements with the Department of Homeland Security that allow local police to enforce federal immigration law.”
Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/seemingly-defiant-posture-state-ag-gets-tongue-lashing-from-appeals-court-over-veiled-threat-to-defy-judges-order-stopping-immigration-arrests/
Full headline: ‘Seemingly defiant posture’: State AG gets tongue-lashing from appeals court over ‘veiled threat’ to defy judge’s order stopping immigration arrests
Link to RULING (PDF viewer) - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25967022-11th-circuitruling-uthmeier/
Link to RULING (PDF) - https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25967022/11th-circuitruling-uthmeier.pdf