Dems want answers on U.S. citizen arrest after police ordered to stand down on immigration law

House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell said Monday the DeSantis administration needs to answer for the arrest last week of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a U.S. citizen, under a suspended immigration law.

During a press conference Monday, Driskell highlighted Florida Highway Patrol’s arrest of Lopez-Gomez on Wednesday, when he was a passenger in a car during a traffic stop on his way to work from Cairo, Georgia, to Tallahassee. The 20-year-old, born in Georgia, was charged under a temporarily suspended law making it a first-degree misdemeanor to illegally enter the state as an “unauthorized alien.”

The case garnered national attention following Florida Phoenix’s reporting on Thursday. Lopez-Gomez was released from jail Thursday evening, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is in custody of the driver of the car, who doesn’t enjoy legal permanent status, in a Broward County transitional center.

“We are a nation of laws, and no one — not Ron DeSantis, not Donald Trump — no one gets to decide to imprison people without cause,” Driskell said. “We need better answers about this. Ron DeSantis and his administration need to answer for this unlawful arrest, and for the pain and suffering they caused, and the fear that they continue to stoke throughout our communities.”

Attorney general tells law enforcement to stand down

Although Attorney General James Uthmeier argues that the federal prohibition on enforcement of the law, SB 4C, doesn’t apply to law enforcement, he sent a memo Friday to FHP, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, police chiefs, and sheriffs stating that they shouldn’t arrest or detain anyone under the suspended law.

“I should also note that while my office represents the current defendants named in this case, it does not represent nonparties like your law enforcement agencies,” Uthmeier wrote in the memo.

The new attorney general, who used to be Gov. DeSantis’ chief of staff, said the state would continue this argument in the federal court for the Southern District of Florida or an appellate court.

His memo came at the direction of U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams on Friday, when she extended the bar on enforcement until the next hearing on April 29.

The judge had barred enforcement of the law on April 4, a little over a month after DeSantis signed it, and she expressed frustration during the Friday hearing in Miami about Lopez-Gomez’s arrest.

Immigrant advocacy groups, Florida Immigrant Coalition and Farmworker Association of Florida Inc., and two women without permanent legal status are suing Uthmeier, the statewide prosecutor, and state attorneys over the constitutionality of the law.

“We appreciate that the federal courts have seen through this blatantly unconstitutional law, but the reality is that, without enforcement, it seems that local law enforcement and Florida Highway Patrol are continuing to ignore the judge and order,” said Miriam Fahsi Haskell, an attorney for Community Justice Project representing the plaintiffs, in a phone interview with the Phoenix Friday. “The reality is that once a person is arrested under SB 4C and booked into jail, that person risks then having an ICE hold on them.”