MIAMI — As the state’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General James Uthmeier made heads spin when he initially told Florida police officers to obey a federal judge’s order not to arrest undocumented immigrants entering the state — then days later told them that he “cannot prevent” them from making arrests under a new law being challenged in court.

On Wednesday, Uthmeier told the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and other police agencies that they could enforce the state statute criminalizing illegal immigrants arriving in Florida who don’t notify federal authorities of their entry — contrary to an April 18 order issued by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami.

Williams is expected to address the explosive issue at a hearing next Tuesday, when state lawyers face off against immigration advocates who sued Florida over the constitutionality of the new immigration law.

The attorney general’s about-face prompted several South Florida lawyers with decades of trial experience to question whether Uthmeier was running the risk of violating the judge’s order in a possible showing of contempt of court. The lawyers, contacted on Thursday by the Miami Herald, said uniformly that the attorney general was violating the “spirit, if not the letter, of the judge’s order.” There might be an actual violation, they said, if police arrest an undocumented immigrant entering Florida under the misdemeanor charge while her order is in effect.

The lawyers also speculated that Uthmeier took a tougher stance against Judge Williams’ order under pressure from the DeSantis administration, which has followed in lock-step with President Donald Trump’s aggressive agenda to deport millions of immigrants believed to be in the country illegally.

Michael R. Band, a veteran defense attorney who served as the chief assistant in the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office in the 1990s, said the attorney general’s instructions to Florida police agencies was “too cute by half.”

“He’s providing an off ramp for these law enforcement agencies to make these arrests and giving them cover,” Band told the Herald. “He’s flouting Judge Williams’ decision by saying he thinks she’s wrong, and he’s going to let law enforcement make up their own minds about things.”

Brian Tannebaum, a notable South Florida criminal defense attorney and ethics expert, described Uthmeier’s strategy in condemning the judge’s order as “Trump lite.”

“I think this was an intentional effort to take on the judge,” Tannebaum told the Herald. “There is a movement now to take on the courts, and this is how it’s being done. Government officials are looking at opportunities to take on the courts.”

A Miami defense lawyer, who is a partner with a national law firm, said the attorney general “is clearly not complying in good faith with the court’s order.” The lawyer, who did not want to be identified out of concern about retaliation by the Trump administration, said the judge’s order enjoined the state from enforcing its new immigration law, which means police officers cannot lawfully arrest anyone suspected of violating it.

Last Friday, Williams scolded lawyers for the attorney general’s office after learning that Florida Highway Patrol officers had arrested more than a dozen people — including a U.S. citizen — after she had ordered them to stop on April 4 when she issued a 14-day temporary restraining order that “prohibited the enforcement” of the state’s immigration law. The order applied to those “who are in active concert or participation with” the defendants named in the immigration groups’ lawsuit. Williams said her order enjoined the named defendants, state attorney general and various state prosecutors in Florida, but also state, county and local police officers.

Saying she was “astounded” by the FHP arrests, Williams extended her ruling for another 11 days, blocking the enforcement of the state immigration law through April 29. In her latest order, she spelled out that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Florida Highway Patrol and all other police agencies were bound by her ruling.

After the Friday court order, Uthmeier sent a memo to state and local law enforcement officers and told them they “must refrain” from enforcing the law and obey the judge’s order, even though he disagreed with it.

“Please instruct your officers and agents to comply with Judge Williams’ directive,” he wrote in the Friday memo.

On Wednesday, he changed his mind, saying her latest order was legally “wrong.”

“Judge Williams ordered my office to notify you of the evolving scope of her order, and I did so,” Uthmeier wrote. “But I cannot prevent you from enforcing [the state immigration law] where there remains no judicial order that properly restrains you from doing so.”

In a court filing on Wednesday, Uthmeier’s office argued that the immigrant groups’ lawsuit only applies to his office and state prosecutors in Florida, noting that “a court’s judgment binds only the parties to a suit.”

Lawyers for his office argued the judge’s ruling does not apply to “independent” law enforcement agencies, such as the Highway Patrol, FDLE, county sheriffs’ offices and local police.

“They are not parties,” the attorney general’s office asserted, because they are not “in active concert or participation with” that office and state prosecutors in Florida.

Uthmeier’s office argued “defendants have no power to control or direct” the behavior of state and local law enforcement.

“While the Attorney General communicated the [judge’s] view that law enforcement should not make arrests under [the state immigration law], he did so solely to comply with this Court’s order—which Defendants maintain is unlawful,” the office added.

Miami lawyer David Weinstein, a former state and federal prosecutor, said the attorney general’s initial letter to Florida police agencies was “in technical compliance with” Judge Williams’ order when Uthmeier said they “should take no steps to enforce” the state immigration law, including arrests.

But he said Uthmeier clearly “softened” his advice in his follow-up letter to the police agencies, “deferring enforcement of the statue to law enforcement.”

“Like many legal matters, the breadth of the application of the Court’s order might come down to a technicality in the law, much like we saw in the immigration case filed in Washington, D.C., that made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Weinstein said.

In a split 5-4 vote this month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration could continue the deportations of Venezuelan immigrants suspected of being gang members under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, but that they must first be allowed to challenge their removals on an individual basis in federal court in Texas — not Washington, where their case was originally filed.

In a statement issued Wednesday, the ACLU of Florida, whose attorneys are among those representing immigrants in the Miami case, said Uthmeier’s latest memo runs afoul of the court order.

“The federal judge’s order was clear: it prohibits the state and its ‘officers, agents, employees, attorneys in, and any persons who are in active concert or participation with them’ from enforcing this law. Law enforcement agencies that enforce this unconstitutional law do so at their own legal peril,” the organization said.

DeSantis, who appointed Uthmeier to the attorney general post, backed him up. The governor circulated Uthmeier’s Wednesday letter and said “immigration law must be enforced and FL is leading on working with the Trump administration to get it done.”

“The mission continues,” DeSantis said in a post on X.

The governor’s office did not respond when asked to clarify if he wanted police to continue making arrests despite the court order blocking enforcement of the law.

The development in Florida comes as the Trump administration wrangles with the federal courts. Trump’s Department of Justice, led by former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, has questioned the scope of judges’ orders, and asked the Supreme Court to limit the authority of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions.

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Miami Herald staff writer Syra Ortiz Blanes and Herald/Times staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.

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