Florida's attorney general appeals judge's contempt finding in immigration case
Uthmeier's lawyers last week filed a notice of appealing U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams' ruling to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
As is common, the notice does not detail arguments that Uthmeier will make at the Atlanta-based appeals court. But the appeal is the latest move in an unusual dispute between Uthmeier and the Miami-based judge.
The issue stems from a law, passed during a February special legislative session, that created state crimes for undocumented immigrants who enter or re-enter Florida. The Florida Immigrant Coalition, the Farmworker Association of Florida and two individual plaintiffs filed a lawsuit on April 2, contending, in part, that the law violates what is known as the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution because immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility.
Williams on April 4 issued a temporary restraining order to block enforcement of the law. She extended the temporary restraining order April 18 and directed Uthmeier to send a letter notifying police agencies that they could not enforce the law. The directive came after reports of arrests. Uthmeier sent such a letter April 18 but followed with an April 23 letter that spurred the contempt issue.
Uthmeier has argued that the temporary restraining order — and a longer-lasting preliminary injunction issued later — should only apply to him and local state attorneys because they were the named defendants in the underlying legal challenge to the law (SB 4-C).
In the April 23 letter to police agencies, Uthmeier reiterated that position and said he could not prevent police from enforcing the law 'where there remains no judicial order that properly restrains you from doing so,' according to Williams' June 17 contempt ruling.
Williams said that statement and other wording in the letter violated her order, writing that in a 'variety of ways, Uthmeier's April 23rd letter conveyed to law enforcement that they could and should disregard the April 18th letter's message that they were required by court order to cease enforcement of SB 4-C.'
'Uthmeier's role endows him with a unique capacity to uphold or undermine the rule of law, and when he does the latter by violating a court order, the integrity of the legal system depends on his conduct being within the court's remedial reach,' Williams wrote in the 27-page contempt ruling.
In a court filing in May, Uthmeier's lawyers said he complied with the temporary restraining order by not enforcing the law and notifying law-enforcement agencies about the temporary restraining order. The filing said Uthmeier was free to express his disagreement with Williams' decision in the April 23 letter.
'The attorney general has consistently abided by the court's order to cease enforcing (the law),' the document said. 'Nowhere does the TRO (expressly or impliedly) require the attorney general to refrain from sharing his views about the order with law enforcement.'
The filing also said Williams' reading of the April 23 letter 'relies on one portion of one sentence, rather than reading (the) letter as a whole and in the context of what preceded it: the April 18 letter' and a legal brief that also was filed April 23.
To carry out the contempt finding, Williams ordered Uthmeier to file bi-weekly reports about whether any arrests, detentions or other law-enforcement actions had occurred under the blocked law — filings he has submitted.
Williams on April 29 issued a preliminary injunction to continue blocking the law, saying it likely was preempted by federal immigration-enforcement authority. In part, she pointed to the law requiring that violators go to jail and indicated that could conflict with federal authority.
Uthmeier also has appealed the preliminary-injunction ruling to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He asked the appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of the preliminary injunction but was turned down. Such a stay would have allowed enforcement of the law while the legal battle plays out.
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Washington Post
39 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Inside Laura Loomer's rise: ‘Obsessive' research, Oval Office visits
Laura Loomer's application for a White House press pass has gone unanswered for months. The jobs she said President Donald Trump wanted her to take working for him have never materialized. And yet, there she was in the Oval Office on July 24 — her fourth time at the White House since Trump returned to office — after the president invited her during a recent phone call. It was the latest example of the unlikely access that Loomer, a 32-year-old, Florida-based MAGA activist and right-wing journalist, has with the world's most powerful man. Loomer has taken credit for the ouster of several federal employees, including former national security adviser Michael Waltz and some on his staff; Vinay Prasad, the Food and Drug Administration's top vaccine regulator; and, most recently, Jen Easterly, whose appointment to the faculty at West Point was rescinded last week. Her posts on social media have preceded other high-profile decisions, including the order ending Hunter Biden's Secret Service detail, which came after Loomer reported that he was being accompanied by agents on a trip to South Africa this spring. Loomer has remained close with Trump despite what she describes as 'contempt' for her by a number of White House staff and Trump advisers. While those close to the president caution that her influence with Trump only goes so far — something Loomer acknowledges — they say it's undeniable that her persistence and loyalty have paid off. 'I know she's known as a 'radical right,' but I think Laura Loomer is a very nice person,' Trump said Sunday, answering questions from reporters. 'I think she's a patriot, and she gets excited because of the fact she's a patriot, and she doesn't like things going on that she thinks are bad for the country. I like her.' In her own telling, corroborated by people around Trump, Loomer's ability to capture the president's attention and sometimes influence his actions is hardly mysterious. She uncovers information she believes will be of interest to him, passes it along to Trump officials, then pushes it out publicly in lengthy posts on X, on her website or on her weekly streaming show, 'Loomer Unleashed.' She is confident the reports will get to the president, given her reputation as a trusted ally. Where some MAGA commentators rely on days or weeks of sustained outrage from online followers to be sure their message is relayed to Trump, people around Trump are quick to ensure he sees what Loomer reports. 'Most of the time, when my information goes viral, the president hears about it, sees about it in some fashion — one of the Cabinet members tells him, or one of his golf buddies tells him, and he ends up asking me about it,' Loomer said in an interview with The Washington Post. 'That's how it goes down. It's really that simple. People just — they don't seem to be able to fathom that. That's how it works.' Key to Loomer's success is one central personality trait, according to those who have dealt with her. 'She is persistent,' said a person close to Trump, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president's personal interactions. 'She's obsessive. She's the most obsessive mind you will ever meet,' said Shane Cory, who helped Loomer set up fundraising for her work after she was banned from social media platforms in 2018 because of anti-Islamic posts. 'The thing that stands out the most with me with Laura is she has no life outside this,' Cory said. 'This is it. From the minute she wakes up in the morning to the minute she goes to sleep, this is all she does, aside from hitting the gym.' The person close to Trump insisted that the president and Loomer speak less than weekly, and 'there were times recently he was very frustrated with her and not speaking to her.' Some of her recommendations have resulted in Trump taking action. Some haven't, the person noted. The president was particularly irked by her criticism of his acceptance of a jet from the Qatari royal family, the person said. Loomer said at the time that after blasting what she called a 'gift from jihadists in suits,' she spoke to Trump and apologized for criticizing him in public. Trump's willingness to make himself accessible to Loomer should come as no surprise, the person close to Trump said, noting the president's tendency to regularly pick up the phone for callers, including reporters, who contact him directly, outside of standard White House channels. Loomer's relationship with Trump developed as he became delighted by her heckling of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis when he ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. She protested him in person and published a barrage of negative pieces about him. The day DeSantis dropped out of the race, Trump called her with congratulations, she said, adding that she told Trump he was the one who had won so handily. 'He said, 'Yeah, but I couldn't have done it without you,'' Loomer recalled. In the months that followed, when Trump would see her in person at his golf clubs, he would warmly say to those around him that she had helped him defeat DeSantis. Loomer's latest Oval Office meeting illustrates both her influence and its limits. The meeting grew out of a telephone call between Trump and Loomer in which the president 'expressed interest' in a topic she had been reporting on 'about a personnel issue,' Loomer said. She declined to say which one of her exposés about administration officials had prompted the meeting. Days before the call, however, she had drawn attention to Philip Droege, the longtime director of the White House's Office of Records Management. In a July 14 post on X, Loomer suggested that Droege was partially responsible for Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club being raided, citing a 2022 Post story. Trump invited Loomer to join him for lunch, but when she arrived at the White House that day, she learned that staff had scheduled her visit to be a regular meeting, and she did not dine with the president. Loomer said that one thing was clear. 'I know for a fact that the president has expressed concern about Philip Droege being in his administration,' Loomer said. 'I don't work for the president, but I do know that when this report came out, and when the president himself saw it, he expressed concern.' The day after her White House meeting, she published a longer story on her website about Droege's employment. He remains employed. The White House did not respond to questions about allegations Loomer has raised, but in a statement, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump 'has put together the best cabinet and staff in history, and the historic achievements over the past six months prove it.' Her access to Trump is counterbalanced by efforts from people around him to keep her at a distance, Loomer said. Trump has offered her jobs 'on four separate occasions,' she said, adding that the jobs were 'snatched away in acts of professional jealousy.' She has never officially been a part of Trump's campaign or White House teams. Loomer applied for a press pass to cover the Trump White House and considered moving to Washington, where she employs one correspondent. But neither of their applications have been approved, despite repeatedly asking about the status of receiving credentials, she said. For years, Loomer has been a thorn in the side of Republicans and Democrats alike, ferociously going after people she believed weren't sufficiently aligned with the MAGA movement and casting herself as an internet underdog who was 'silenced in America' and became the 'most banned woman in the world.' In her early 20s, she worked for Project Veritas, the far-right activist group that gained fame for making surreptitious videos to discredit mainstream media figures and other ideological opponents. In 2017, she was banned from Uber and Lyft for a viral rant against 'Islamic immigrant' drivers; a year later, she was kicked off Twitter for a post calling Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) antisemitic. After Elon Musk bought Twitter, he reinstated Loomer and many other right-wing influencers, giving her a kind of semi-celebrity status on the MAGA internet. Her return helped expand Loomer's sphere of influence in right-wing social media circles, where the self-proclaimed 'pro-white nationalism' activist and 'proud Islamophobe' is known for her rapid-fire pace and anything-goes attack style. Loomer's follower count on Twitter, now X, exploded from about 270,000 in late 2022 to 1.3 million followers in November, when Trump was elected again, a Post analysis of platform data shows. She has gained 400,000 followers in the months since. Loomer has tapped into a symbiosis where 'a conservative influencer makes something a scandal, and if it picks up enough traction, then it becomes policy,' said Nina Jankowicz, a researcher who briefly served in the Biden administration as the executive director of a newly created Disinformation Governance Board before intense criticism from right-wing influencers forced it to shut down. At this point, Trump doesn't even need to see posts from Loomer for them to have an impact, Jankowicz said. Her relationship with the president is well known, and 'the underlings in the administration need to act quickly to prove their fealty.' Loomer is '100 percent self-made, through her ferocious personality,' said Cory, who has known her since her Project Veritas days. 'She creates the echo chamber,' he said. After she was banned from social media, she told Cory, 'I couldn't get a job at McDonald's,' he recalled in an interview. Cory worked with her to build up a donor base, recalling her being 'the fastest-rising one' of his clients who started from scratch. Loomer clarified that she did not actually apply for a job at the fast-food restaurant, but couldn't get hired anywhere because of 'smears' against her after facing bans. Raheem Kassam, the editor of the conservative National Pulse and co-owner of Butterworth's, a Capitol Hill restaurant that welcomes the MAGA crowd, said he has known Loomer for years. 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Boston Globe
43 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
In prison, keeping up with technology is key to ‘basic survival' on the outside
Digital access has expanded rapidly in Massachusetts county jails and state prisons in the past two years. Everyone who is incarcerated is now assigned a tablet with access to online classes and vocational training programs, phone calls and email, and movies and music. But advocates say more needs to be done to upgrade correctional facilities' technology infrastructure and equip those serving time with the skills needed to thrive in today's rapidly changing world. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up And the prison telecommunications industry, currently dominated by a handful of private-equity-backed companies, is ripe for disruption. Advertisement It's not just about giving people more skills to prepare for their release, such as paying bills or finding bus schedules online, advocates say. It's about keeping them better connected to the world while they're inside prison walls and making it easier for them to reintegrate back into society when they get out — reducing recidivism and improving public safety in the process. Many people wind up in prison because they grew up in poverty and can't afford to pay bail or access mental health care, said Virginia Benzan, who leads the Massachusetts Digital Equity Coalition, a network of nonprofits, libraries, colleges, and municipalities committed to digital equity and advocacy. Having a criminal record compounds these inequities by making it more difficult to secure employment and housing. Advertisement If the incarcerated population doesn't get a grasp on new technologies, that divide continues to grow, Benzan said. 'If we transition everything online and don't think about how everybody can access it equally and equitably,' Benzan said, 'we're expanding the disparities we already see.' Hudson, who now works for Prisoners' Legal Services of Massachusetts, said technology was in a 'primitive state' when he was incarcerated. And when he reentered society three years ago with no Internet skills, everything he needed was online: housing, employment, public assistance. 'It's that kind of disconnect from the evolution of what's happening out in society that really sets a person's integration back tenfold,' he said. The wheels of improvement are in motion. Along with distributing And six county sheriffs' departments have started, or are about to launch, digital literacy pilot programs, with more in the works. But much more can be done, said April Feng, the Boston-based chief executive of Ameelio, the tech nonprofit spearheading the digital literacy program in local jails. Ameelio is also pushing for something much bigger: to replace for-profit telecommunications providers and develop partnerships with corrections systems around the country that will give states and counties more control over their technology. Advertisement 'We just want to divorce profit from rehabilitation,' Feng said. Current tablet content could be replaced by higher-quality offerings from community organizations such as MIT and the Boston Public Library, which are eager to connect to residents behind the wall, Feng said. And the whole system could be operated much more efficiently by utilizing free online resources and allowing competition from vendor-neutral networks. Currently, two companies run the majority of the country's prison communications industry — ViaPath Technologies and Securus Technologies, the latter of which serves Massachusetts facilities. These organizations have generated intense scrutiny for the prices they charge families for phone calls. Because the prison population is a captive audience and not in a position to make many demands, these companies have little incentive to make improvements, Feng said. 'The invisibility makes it OK,' she said. In a statement, a Securus spokesperson said the company is 'dedicated to advancing digital access and individual rehabilitation within correctional facilities.' In Ameelio's potential partnerships in Massachusetts, the software would be paid for by the state, Feng said, with additional infrastructure investments from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute. Of the 11 states Ameelio is working with, Massachusetts is the most promising because of widespread support for improving the prison experience, Feng said. In late 2023, Massachusetts became the $22 million in fiscal year 2025. Advertisement 'Maintaining and fostering these connections between folks who are in our care and their loved ones on the outside, quite frankly, I find, is probably the most important rehabilitative factor for successful reentry,' said Shawn Jenkins, the state Department of Correction commissioner. The Department of Correction pays Securus 8 cents a minute for each call. With Ameelio's modern technology and built-in security features, it could be done for a 10th of that cost, Feng said. Ameelio's local digital-literacy classes, a collaboration with Boston-based nonprofit Tech Goes Home, are being funded by a Without a firm grasp on modern technology, people who are released from incarceration won't have the skills to fully rejoin society and may wind up back in jail, said Donna Buckley, sheriff of Barnstable County, which is launching a digital literacy program this week. 'It's us as a community … who decides when somebody is incarcerated," she said, 'but it's also our responsibility to make sure we don't continue to punish people post-release by making it impossible for them to reintegrate.' Advertisement Technology can also give people inside prisons the ability to educate the public about their experiences by testifying in legislative hearings or participating in conferences. 'People make mistakes, sometimes really, really bad mistakes, but they still deserve a voice,' said Feng, of Ameelio. 'If they can use their voice to talk about that mistake, maybe other people won't do the same.' Residents who've served time often don't have internet access when they get out, said Brian Donoghue, chief digital equity officer for the City of Boston. About 45 percent of formerly incarcerated residents use the of the overall population, according to a 'Digital access has become a gatekeeper for basic survival,' Donoghue said. Jessenia Cortes started taking classes at the city's Office of Returning Citizens after she was released last summer from South Bay House of Correction, where she served 87 days for assault and battery. Cortes grew up in public housing in South Boston and was in and out of foster care; she was abused and sexually assaulted, and fell into bad relationships as an adult. 'I really wasn't able to deal with my pain, so when I got mad I lashed out,' she said. She's learning new computer skills in a Advertisement And she's hopeful these new skills will help lead to a new chapter: 'They're giving me a purpose,' she said. But these type of grant-funded opportunities are fleeting. Due to federal funding cuts, the city's digital equity classes — and other programs that would have been part of a This story was produced by the Globe's team, which covers the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston. You can sign up for the newsletter . Katie Johnston can be reached at
Miami Herald
43 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
DeSantis' congressional map helped the GOP keep the House. Will he do it again?
Gov. Ron DeSantis won the redistricting fight he started years ago. Despite that, he's eyeing another battle — hinting that he would be in favor of redrawing Florida's Congressional map, which already favors Republican lawmakers. DeSantis hasn't officially committed to making the change, but said he would look 'favorably' on lawmakers if they did recut Florida's districts. 'I haven't done it yet, I think that I will when I need to,' DeSantis said last week during a news conference. 'But this is obviously something that we're looking at very seriously.' Both the Florida Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez declined to comment about whether they were considering redistricting. The possible change comes as President Donald Trump has pushed for redrawn maps to ensure that Republicans keep control of the U.S. House in the upcoming midterm elections. Here's what to know about redistricting in Florida, and what could happen next. Why are we talking about redistricting now? Trump and his team have put pressure on Texas and other red states to redraw their Congressional maps in order to protect the Republican majority in Congress. Currently, Republicans control the House and Senate, but the margins are narrow. Mid-decade redistricting is rare, experts say. Each state must redistrict every decade, based on the census. But states hoping to redraw sooner than required are noting there's nothing in the Constitution forbidding extra redistricting. It may not be only the red states looking to recut maps. In response to Trump, some Democratic lawmakers have said they plan to fight back with redrawn maps of their own, despite their limited options. 'Redistricting, which is supposed to translate votes into representation, is becoming just a game for politicians to play hardball with,' said Douglas Spencer, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Colorado. If states redraw their maps with a partisan advantage, the courts could strike them down. But even if the courts strike the maps down, it could come after election season. 'Trump gets the benefit of having a midterm election where Republicans maintain control for his term and after he's gone I don't think he cares,' Spencer said. Florida's current map DeSantis hasn't promised Florida will redistrict, but he said to 'stay tuned.' Amy Keith, the executive director of voting rights group Common Cause Florida, said if DeSantis were to redraw Florida's maps, it would be hypocritical. In July, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Florida's Congressional map, which was drafted — atypically — by DeSantis' office. 'The governor just got the map that he drew,' Keith said. 'The map that the governor wanted is the map that was just upheld. And now the governor's saying he wants to change that map.' The governor's map favored Republicans winning 20 of Florida's 28 Congressional Districts — which is exactly how the results shook out on Election Day in 2022. Plaintiffs who challenged the map said it reduced Black voting power by dismantling a North Florida seat held by former U.S. Rep. Al Lawson. DeSantis said the long district, which stretched across the panhandle, relied too much on race. The Florida Supreme Court sided with DeSantis' argument, saying that the district was likely an illegal race-based gerrymander. After that ruling, DeSantis on social media said Florida's map his office drafted was 'always the constitutionally correct map.' But as of last week, DeSantis said his office was looking at some other areas where 'there may be problems with the map,' including in South Florida. What are Florida's rules? In 2010, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment from Fair Districts Florida. That amendment says that no plan can be drawn to favor or disfavor a political party, along with requiring that districts cannot be drawn to deny equal opportunity to racial minorities. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court said that partisan gerrymandering couldn't be ruled on by federal courts — meaning its exclusively state court that can decide if a redistricting plan violates the rules, Spencer said. As DeSantis has talked about the possibility of redrawing Florida's Congressional seats, he's avoided talking about a political motivation for it. But if Florida were to redraw the maps, groups could still challenge it as a gerrymander even if DeSantis never explicitly mentions the political advantage. Dan Vicuña, a senior policy director at Common Cause, said 'we don't have to rely on the pretext that the governor is giving.' Instead, groups can rely on tools like random computer generation to see the odds of a government coming to a map with a specific partisan tilt, he said. What's the deal about the Census? As DeSantis has talked about redistricting, he's also raised concern about the 2020 census. Florida got one extra congressional seat because of population growth. But the U.S. Census Bureau later released a report showing that Florida was undercounted. DeSantis said the Trump administration has considered a mid-decade census, which would be unusual. Whenever the next census does come, whether it's early or not, DeSantis said he would want it to exclude foreign nationals. The Trump administration in 2020 considered adding a question about citizenship to the census but the U.S. Supreme Court blocked it. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who was working in the Trump administration at that time, played a key role in adding that question. Jeff Kottkamp, the executive vice president of the group Florida TaxWatch, said the census undercount affects leads to a loss of billions of dollars over the decade that could have come into the state. When it comes to whether or not to count people without citizenship, Kottkamp, the former Lieutenant Governor of Florida, said that's a debate politicians can have. 'All we care about is that every state counts the same way, and that clearly didn't happen last time,' he said. The U.S. Constitution says that the census will count 'the whole number of persons' in each state. Kottkamp said some blue states put extra time and effort toward making sure foreign nationals are counted, while red states don't — to their own detriment. 'We're playing the game with two different sets of rules, and that's not good for Florida when it comes to funding and political power,' he said.
