MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis and other top officials have ramped up their criticism of a federal judge in Miami who recently blocked the enforcement of a new state law that makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants to enter Florida after illegally crossing into the United States.

They have roundly denounced U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, saying she has overstepped her authority as she considers in late May whether to hold state Attorney General James Uthmeier in contempt of court for flouting a restraining order that she issued last month.

At a news conference in Tampa on Monday, DeSantis lumped Williams with other federal judges he said “have just gotten out of control in this country” over immigration disputes. He said Williams “wrongly” concluded the Florida statute was likely unconstitutional and that she was wrong as well she said a preliminary injunction was needed to prevent harm to illegal immigrants who have sued the state to stop enforcement of the misdemeanor offense.

DeSantis also said the judge has “no authority” to order Uthmeier to instruct the Florida Highway Patrol and other police agencies to refrain from arresting illegal immigrants upon arrival in the state — which is at the center of the contempt issue — because law enforcement officers are not named as defendants in the immigrants’ case.

“This is Law 101. She doesn’t have jurisdiction,” Uthmeier told Fox35 in Orlando on Friday, saying he has obeyed the law. “We hope the [federal] appellate court will fix the problems the lower court created and reaffirm that, as ‘the least dangerous branch,’ district court judges must stay in their constitutional lane.”

Jeremy Redfern, the communications director for Uthmeier, characterized Williams’ position as “lawfare” by an “Obama-appointed judge” on the social media site X, suggesting she has used her power as a legal weapon to thwart the Republican-led government’s efforts to assist the Trump administration on immigration enforcement.

The concerted verbal assault on Williams, a Democrat who served as a prosecutor and public defender in Miami before becoming a federal judge in 2011, has been striking. It contrasts sharply with how one of her colleagues on the federal bench in Miami was treated by the DeSantis administration when that judge halted the enforcement of a previous state immigration law.

Two years ago, DeSantis championed legislation that made it a crime to transport undocumented immigrants into Florida — a state law that he touted in his GOP primary campaign for president.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Roy Altman, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump, stopped enforcement of the state law with a preliminary injunction sought by a farm workers’ group. Altman wrote that he temporarily blocked the law because the group would otherwise “suffer irreparable harm.” He said that its members would face family separations and that the law would affect service providers that transport immigrants across state lines to appointments for medical and immigration services.

At first, Altman said his preliminary injunction would be enforceable across the state, but then he ruled in March that it would only apply to the plaintiffs who sued the state. The federal case was filed in 2023 by the Farmworker Association of Florida, which advocates for about 12,000 seasonal and migrant farm workers across the state. It is represented by lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union.

But unlike their harsh criticism of Judge Williams, DeSantis and other Florida officials kept their objections to Judge Altman civil, limiting their differences with him to court filings. At the time, Ashley Moody, now a Florida senator, was the state attorney general.

There were no critical comments about Altman at news conferences or on social media, like the verbal barrage against Williams.

The political dynamics of U.S. immigration policy have changed dramatically under Trump. His administration has launched a sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States, targeting not only foreign nationals with criminal records but also Venezuelans and other migrants with so-called Temporary Protected Status and humanitarian parole granted by the Biden administration.

In executing his agenda, Trump has relied on Republican-dominated states like Florida in helping detain illegal immigrants so that U.S. authorities can deport them, leading to confrontations with federal judges like Williams.

“The significant difference between this year and last year is that the Trump administration has declared war on judges,” said Jon May, a longtime South Florida criminal defense attorney, who represented Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega on drug-trafficking charges in Miami.

“It’s completely political,” May told the Miami Herald, noting what he called the state’s and federal governments’ “defiance” of federal court orders. “DeSantis wants to ‘out-fascist’ the Trump administration.... But Judge Williams is fearless. She’s not going to be intimidated.”

Evan Power, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, said the No. 1 issue for voters in the last presidential election was immigration enforcement. He said elected officials have grown increasingly frustrated with federal judges like Williams who block coordinated efforts to detain and deport undocumented migrants, including the state’s new law criminalizing those who enter Florida.

“It shouldn’t be up to random, politically motivated judges who are making these decisions,” Power told the Herald. “What you’re seeing is elected officials reacting in frustration.”

In a post on X last week, Power wrote: “People don’t want judges getting in the way of enforcing our laws or protecting Floridians from criminal illegals.”

‘Surprised and shocked’

The showdown between Judge Williams and the state attorney general’s office came nearly one month after the Florida Immigrant Coalition, Farmworker Association of Florida and others represented by ACLU lawyers filed suit in early April, saying that the new state law is unconstitutional because only federal authorities have the power to enforce immigration laws.

Williams agreed on a preliminary basis, citing the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution, which says federal law takes precedence over state and local laws.

In late April, Williams said she was “surprised and shocked” to learn that Uthmeier first told police officers to obey her order not to arrest undocumented immigrants entering Florida but later said he “cannot prevent” them from making arrests under the new state law.

Williams issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting all state law enforcement officials and police agencies from arresting undocumented immigrants who come into Florida.

The judge also scheduled a critical hearing for May 29 that could lead to Uthmeier being held in contempt of court for disobeying her prior restraining order in the immigration case. Williams said the state attorney general’s directive telling police officers that they could make arrests “threw everything out of whack,” leaving her with no choice but to hold a hearing to allow Uthmeier to explain why she should not hold him in contempt of her order.

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

Uthmeier and his office’s lawyers argued that Williams’ restraining orders and injunction should only apply to the defendants named in the immigrant groups’ lawsuit, namely the state attorney general, statewide prosecutor and various state attorneys in Florida — not police agencies and officers.

Here’s what triggered the confrontation in Miami federal court: Uthmeier told the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and other police agencies that they could continue to enforce the state statute criminalizing illegal immigrants arriving in Florida who hadn’t notified federal authorities of their entry into the U.S. — contrary to Williams’ April 18 restraining order.

That day, Williams scolded lawyers for the attorney general’s office after learning that Florida Highway Patrol officers 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, the 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. 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 April 18 hearing, 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 memo. But five days later, 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 in another memo on April 23 to Florida law enforcement agencies. “But I cannot prevent you from enforcing [the state immigration law] where there remains no judicial order that properly restrains you from doing so.”

It’s not known whether Florida police agencies have since made additional arrests of undocumented immigrants who entered the state.

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