A Federal Judge Paused A Florida Immigration Law. The Arrests Continued Anyway.
On Wednesday, 20-year-old U.S.-born citizen Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was arrested in Florida and charged with illegally entering the state as an 'unauthorized alien.' He was detained even after his mother presented his birth certificate and Social Security card in court, a harrowing indication that even citizens are not safe from the Trump administration's anti-immigration agenda.
Although headlines focused on the absurdity of charging a U.S. citizen with illegal entry, there was another potentially unlawful element of his arrest: On April 4, weeks before his arrest, a federal judge paused enforcement of Senate Bill 4-C, the state law used to detain him.
But Lopez-Gomez is not the only person who has been arrested since U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued the temporary restraining order. On Friday, lawyers representing the immigrants suing Florida state officials over the constitutionality of the immigration law disclosed that at least 15 people have been arrested since the pause went into effect.
Thirteen of the arrests took place in Leon County, where Lopez-Gomez was detained, Daniel Tilley, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union Florida chapter, told HuffPost after the hearing. There was also at least one arrest in Orange County and another in Hillsborough County, the Miami Herald reported, citing the lawyers in the hearing.
Robert Schenck, a lawyer representing the Florida Attorney General's Office, argued in court that the temporary restraining order only applied to the parties listed in the suit, not to individual law enforcement agencies.
'I am astounded and don't understand this argument,' Judge Williams said.
'When I issued the temporary restraining order, it never occurred to me that police officers would not be bound by it,' the judge continued. 'It never occurred to me that the state attorneys would not give direction to law enforcement so that we would not have these unfortunate arrests.'
Williams extended the initial 14-day temporary restraining order until April 29 and clarified that the order applied to anyone tasked with enforcing the law. She warned that arresting people pursuant to a law that had been blocked from being enforced could constitute 'false imprisonment,' Tilley said. It is unclear how many additional arrests have been made throughout the state.
Lopez-Gomez was born in Georgia but spent most of his life in Mexico until returning four years ago, his mother told the Florida Phoenix, which first reported on his case. On Wednesday, while Lopez-Gomez was commuting to work in Tallahassee, Florida Highway Patrol pulled over the driver of the car he was a passenger in for allegedly speeding. Lopez-Gomez, as well as the driver and another passenger, were arrested and charged under S.B. 4-C, which was the subject of Williams' temporary restraining order at the time.
Asked why Lopez-Gomez, a U.S. citizen, was charged with entering Florida as an 'unauthorized alien,' the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles communication office said in an email that Lopez-Gomez told a Florida state trooper he was not legally authorized to be in the U.S.
Lopez-Gomez, who speaks a Mayan language called Tzotzil and is not fluent in English or Spanish, never said he was 'here illegally,' his lawyer Mutaqee Akbar told CNN.
The arrest report quotes other people in the vehicle stating they were not in the U.S. legally, but does not quote Lopez-Gomez, Akbar told CNN.
Asked why Florida Highway Patrol made arrests pursuant to a law that had been blocked by a federal judge, the highway safety office said, 'Florida Highway Patrol will continue to work willingly with our federal partners to engage in interior enforcement of immigration law.'
Lopez-Gomez spent Wednesday night in the Leon County jail. The Homeland Security Investigations Office in Tampa issued a 48-hour ICE detainer for him on Thursday. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to an email asking why a U.S. citizen was subject to a detainer.
At a court hearing on Thursday morning, Lopez-Gomez's mother produced his birth certificate and his Social Security card as evidence that he is a U.S. citizen. Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans confirmed the birth certificate was 'authentic' and said she found no probable cause for the charge. Even so, a state prosecutor argued that because ICE had asked the local jail to continue detaining him, the court did not have the authority to grant his release.
Riggans appeared to agree, and Lopez-Gomez remained in jail. He was released later that night after protesters gathered outside the jail where he was being detained.
An ICE detainer is not a judicial warrant, and it is unclear why Riggans, who did not respond to a request for comment, believed she did not have the authority to order his release.
The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly looking into Lopez-Gomez's case, but did not respond to a request for comment about the circumstances of his release.
S.B. 4-C, which was signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in February, carries stiff penalties. A first violation of 'illegal entry' is a misdemeanor with a mandatory minimum punishment of nine months in prison. A subsequent violation is considered a felony and carries a two-year mandatory minimum sentence.
In early April, the Florida Immigrant Coalition and other immigrant advocacy groups, including the Farmworker Association of Florida Inc., sued state officials, arguing that the law violated the Constitution's supremacy and commerce clauses.
Moreover, 'the law will subject thousands of immigrants who enter Florida, including asylum seekers and immigrants applying for other federal immigration benefits and status, to criminal punishment,' the lawyers representing the plaintiffs wrote in the complaint. The law 'effectively banishes large categories of immigrants whose immigration cases are pending, and to whom the federal government may eventually grant lawful status, permanent residence, and citizenship.'
Although Lopez-Gomez was released after one night in jail, his case represents a rare circumstance in that he was a U.S. citizen and his mother was able to produce proof. For undocumented people arrested under S.B. 4-C, even if the charges are eventually dropped as a result of the federal litigation, they could remain imprisoned as a result of an immigration detainer.
'If they are arrested contrary to the [temporary restraining order], their charges could be dropped, but they will still be held,' Tilley said.
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