Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, center, and former Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez attend the first day of the legislative session at the Florida State Capitol on Tuesday, March 4, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla.


Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, the state’s chief legal officer, faces a contempt of court hearing on Thursday afternoon in a politically fraught immigration case before a Miami federal judge who could fine him or send him to jail.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams found Uthmeier violated her temporary restraining order last month to stop enforcing a new state law that makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants to enter Florida after illegally crossing into the United States.

At first, Uthmeier seemed to obey her order when he instructed the Florida Highway Patrol and other police agencies in mid-April that they had to refrain from enforcing the new law — after Williams learned FHP officers had arrested more than a dozen people for illegally entering the state under the new misdemeanor law, including a U.S. citizen.

But Judge Williams said the attorney general crossed the line days later when Uthmeier informed those same police agencies “there remains no judicial order that properly restrains you from” enforcing the statute.

Uthmeier, 37, is a Florida native who served as chief of staff for Gov. Ron DeSantis before he appointed him as the state’s 39th attorney general in February.