TAMPA, Fla. — Florida police arrested more than two dozen people under a controversial new immigration law that makes it a crime to enter the state while undocumented — after a judge blocked the measure saying it was likely unconstitutional, a Tampa Bay Times analysis has found.

At least nine of the 25 arrested have landed in immigration detention — scattered across the country from a crowded lockup in Miami to a facility in a sleepy Texas railway town to a confinement in a Pacific Northwest port city overlooked by Mount Rainier.

Nearly all of them ended up on the radar of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after they were stopped by Florida Highway Patrol officers on the road.

Most were pulled over for minor traffic infractions: following too closely, going 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, stopping on the side of the highway. One man was arrested after he was an apparent victim in a hit-and-run crash. Another was a U.S. citizen.

Ten faced no other charges besides the immigration crime. None were arrested for violent offenses. Six were merely passengers in another person’s vehicle.

Police made arrests in counties all over the state, along roadways in Tampa Bay, the outskirts of Disney World and unincorporated stretches of rural Florida. The highest number occurred near the state’s capital.

They included a man stopped for tinted windows in St. Petersburg. A passenger in a car that was pulled over after the driver failed to use a turn signal near the Florida-Georgia border. A father who veered into another lane in Orange County.

“I certainly think there’s a basis for saying their arrests were illegal,” said Sarah Paoletti, a professor who specializes in immigration and human rights at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. “And therefore their detention is illegal.”

The 25 arrested join more than four dozen others in Florida who’ve been taken into custody since the law became effective in February.

The Times analysis reveals that the arrest toll — before and after the enforcement ban — is far higher than previously known. The circumstances around the arrests also haven’t been reported on until now.

To examine the cases, the Times requested data from every county clerk’s office in the state. Reporters combed through court documents to examine charges and federal records to identify people in ICE custody.

In all, at least a third of those arrested have ended up in immigration detention centers, the Times found. At least one person has already been deported. No one has been convicted of the new state crime.

More than three dozen others were released from local jails or could not be accounted for. The Times was not able to confirm whether they are in federal immigration custody, have been deported or were released back into the community.

The Florida Highway Patrol did not agree to an interview or respond to questions about the arrests sent in writing.

Florida’s law was part of a sweeping package aimed at aiding President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda by expanding the immigration enforcement system that could ensnare the roughly 1 million undocumented residents living in the state.

It gave Florida officials unprecedented power. The law essentially transformed thousands of police officers in Florida into immigration agents — allowing enforcement on a scale far beyond what Gov. Ron DeSantis said “random ICE agents that are sprinkled around the country” could accomplish.

Immigration lawyers and advocates immediately objected, claiming it was unconstitutional and could lead to racial profiling. They sued the Florida attorney general’s office and state attorneys for each judicial circuit. Forty-eight hours after its filing, a federal judge blocked it. The law was likely unconstitutional, the judge said, because it placed authority of the federal government into the hands of state officials.

Now, the law has become the nexus of an ongoing battle between Florida leaders and the court system — a move that experts say echoes the Trump administration’s defiant stance against judicial checks on power.

After the judge ordered the enforcement freeze on April 4, prosecutions stopped — but arrests continued.

Daisel Herrera Toranzo was among the apprehended. He was driving through Columbia County when his Toyota Corolla collided with another vehicle on the interstate. The other driver fled. But 28-year-old Herrera Toranzo and a fellow passenger waited for police.

Once they arrived, officers discovered Herrera Toranzo didn’t have a driver’s license, according to a police report. He was arrested on the misdemeanor charge and under the immigration law.

ICE requested that Florida Highway Patrol officers place a detainer on him when they booked him into the local jail. It’s unclear whether he ended up in a detention center. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his case remains open. (He did not respond to interview requests from the Times.)

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier argued that the judge’s order only applied to named defendants in the lawsuit — himself and state attorneys — not to police carrying out arrests. In a memo, he told law enforcement officers across the state that he couldn’t prevent them from making immigration arrests under the law.

Three legal experts criticized the attorney general’s argument, calling it “ridiculous” and “specious.”

“It feels like they’re saying, ‘OK, how do we keep doing what we want to do, and what are the arguments we can make before the court to see how far can we push this?’” Paoletti said. “It’s why I keep coming back to testing the limits of the judiciary. It feels like they’re testing.”

Another expert said the continued arrests were highly unusual. Typically, police won’t arrest people for a crime that can’t be prosecuted.

But the end goal of the enforcement likely isn’t prosecution, experts said.

“The goal in arresting them may be to turn them over to ICE,” said Howard M. Wasserman, a law professor at Florida International University who specializes in civil rights.

Those arrested may be able to fight for their release from immigration detention, citing the lack of due process, experts said. But it wouldn’t be easy.

ICE did not respond to requests for comment.

In recent weeks, the judge clarified her ban definitely applies to police, saying she was shocked by continued arrests described by attorneys in the case. She is weighing whether to hold Uthmeier in contempt of court over his statements to police.

Uthmeier did not respond to interview requests. In a court filing, his attorneys said he wasn’t in contempt of court because he “did not direct law enforcement officials to do anything.”

A Florida Highway Patrol spokesperson told the Times earlier this month that the agency is no longer enforcing the law. But DeSantis and Uthmeier have ramped up their criticism.

“Clearly, it’s got to be OK for a state to try to vindicate the federal government’s policies,” DeSantis said at a Tampa press conference earlier this month.

“This raises the issue of these judges that have just gotten out of control in this country,” he added.

As the fate of the law remains unclear, for people further along in the deportation pipeline, it may already be too late.

The dozens arrested

Florida lawmakers approved the state’s immigration law along with a series of other contentious measures designed to deter undocumented people from coming to the state during a special session in February. The package of bills also eliminated the ability of college students without legal status to receive in-state tuition rates and mandated the death penalty for immigrants who commit capital offenses while in the country illegally.

People charged under the state immigration statute face a misdemeanor for a first offense and a felony if they’re found to have re-entered Florida after previously being deported.

At least 79 people have been arrested since the law went into effect, including the 25 picked up after the enforcement ban.

More than 40% of the people charged under the law were from Mexico. Another 34 were from other parts of Latin America. Only four were born elsewhere.

Nearly three-quarters were taken into custody by Florida Highway Patrol, the Times analysis found.

The arrests don’t match the rhetoric of the “national security threat” state leaders claim undocumented immigrants pose. On social media, they highlight instances of law enforcement catching “foreign terrorists” and people who commit murder abroad.

Just two of the 79 were charged with a violent crime at the time of their arrest: A 25-year-old man accused of sexual assault in Land O’ Lakes and a 27-year-old Port Richey man accused of abusing a woman with a developmental disability. The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office and New Port Richey police made the arrests.

Nearly a third have not been charged with any other offense. For 20 others, driving without a license, a misdemeanor, was their only other alleged crime.

People who are undocumented in a state like Florida, with scant access to public transportation, are at particular risk of facing the charge. More than a third of U.S. states allow undocumented immigrants to receive driver’s licenses, but Florida does not. It also doesn’t recognize licenses from some states belonging to undocumented people.

“It’s a poor public policy to not allow access to driver’s licenses,” Paoletti said. “But it is another means of criminalizing people based on their immigration status.”

Most arrests were concentrated in central and northern parts of the state. No one has been detained in Miami-Dade or Duval counties, according to county clerk and state court data, despite the areas boasting sizable immigrant populations.

Police made arrests after stopping people for not wearing seat belts in Bay and Leon counties. Having expired tags in Pasco. In one case, jaywalking in Orange.

Emanuel Dali Ramirez-Gutierrez was walking along a highway median in Orlando on March 18 when a Florida Highway Patrol officer whipped his vehicle into a U-turn to stop him.

“Josue?” the officer asked, according to dash camera footage. “You’re not Josue?”

“No,” the 37-year-old replied.

“Do you have your, uh…pasaporte? Identificación?”

“No,” he replied.

“No, now I have nothing, papers,” he added in Spanish.

He was from Honduras, according to a police report, and had come to the U.S. through the Texas-Mexico border.

An ICE agent had no record that Ramirez-Gutierrez was lawfully in the country, the report says. State troopers arrested him.

The new statute — “Unauthorized Alien Entering Florida without Inspection” — was his only listed charge.

He rode in silence on the 10-minute trip to the local jail, a worried look on his face. It was the beginning of a long journey.

After four days, he posted bail and was released. At some point, ICE arrested him. He was sent hundreds of miles away to an immigration detention center in a remote town in New Mexico, where he spent several weeks. He now is in a Texas lockup, miles from the Mexico border.

Two weeks after his arrest, immigration advocates challenged the law that landed him in jail, saying the measure was unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued her order mandating state prosecutors, as well as any agents, officials or people cooperating with them, to temporarily halt enforcement.

Williams agreed with the advocates’ argument that immigrants could “suffer irreparable harm” by being prosecuted — or arrested — under an unconstitutional state law.

By that point, 54 people had been arrested. At least 18 landed in immigration detention centers, detainee records show. One would eventually be deported.

More than two dozen others, the Times found, would be detained by Florida officers in the coming weeks.

The freeze that wasn’t

Florida Highway Patrol championed the state’s immigration law after the ordered enforcement freeze like no other police agency.

Its officers were responsible for 23 of the 25 arrests. The Tampa Police Department and Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office made the other two after responding to theft and burglary reports.

Among the Highway Patrol’s cases was Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a U.S. citizen who was taken into custody in Leon County. He had been a passenger in a car that was pulled over for speeding. Lopez-Gomez spent most of his life in Mexico and spoke Tzotzil, an indigenous Maya language. He was held in the county jail for more than 26 hours before his release.

Most of those arrested have had their immigration charges dropped.

But several of those people remain in immigration custody: A man who was a passenger in a vehicle stopped for speeding in Leon County. A driver stopped for failing to wear his seatbelt or use his turn signal, also in Leon County. A man stopped for a commercial vehicle inspection in Gadsden County.

The St. Petersburg driver with tinted windows; the man who failed to stay in his lane in Orlando; the passenger detained near the Georgia border, while he was still in school.

Those who aren’t in custody could also face longterm effects, experts said.

“It could lead to losing your job. It could lead to losing your children. It can have devastating consequences on a person’s mental and physical health,” said Elora Mukherjee, a professor at Columbia Law School who specializes in immigration.

Apprehensions continued until April 18, when during a hearing, Williams decried ongoing arrests made by Florida Highway Patrol.

“When I issued the temporary restraining order, it never occurred to me that police officers would not be bound by it,” she said in court, according to the Miami Herald. “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.”

But she’d only learned of a fraction of them, the Times found.

During the hearing, lawyers said as many as 15 people had been apprehended. The judge emphasized that all Florida police agencies were bound by her ruling and later issued an ongoing injunction. The enforcement ban will remain in place for the remainder of the case.

Williams ordered Attorney General Uthmeier and other defendants to promptly notify police agencies.

And, the Herald reported, she implored officials to free those in custody: “Why aren’t these people being released immediately?”

A ticking clock

Once someone is thrown into the immigration detention pipeline, experts said, it’s not so simple.

“The issue is, as applied to immigrants, if they’re getting arrested under this phony law and they don’t have status — well, tough,” said Michael Vastine, a professor who specializes in immigration at Stetson University College of Law. “They’re in the clutches of immigration already.”

Uthmeier’s office has appealed the judge’s decision. He maintains the order’s reach was legally “wrong.”

Williams this week will consider whether to hold him in contempt of court.

The Times has not identified apprehensions by any local police agency that occurred after the April 18 injunction. Florida Highway Patrol has stopped making arrests under the law, said Sgt. Steve Gaskins, an agency spokesperson.

Experts said anyone facing deportation after an arrest on state immigration charges may be able to challenge their removal case as well as their ICE detention. The judge’s ruling that Florida’s law may be unconstitutional is grounds enough, they said.

People arrested after the initial ban may especially have recourse, said Paoletti, the University of Pennsylvania immigration professor.

The federal government, however, could try to pursue their removal from the U.S. based on evidence unearthed during their time in custody.

The clock is also ticking.

Once someone is deported, returning to the U.S. is far less likely, immigration experts said. The Trump administration’s whirlwind of administrative changes has made it especially difficult.

“It’s really, often, very hard,” said Mukherjee, the Columbia professor.

Those in immigration custody have traveled thousands of miles within the U.S. to places as far as Washington state. Accessing attorneys, experts said, can be challenging.

Some have already spent over a month in custody. With hearings ahead, they wait.

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About this story

The Tampa Bay Times compiled its list of 79 arrests from public records across the state. Times reporters submitted requests to every county clerk of courts and county sheriff’s office for case numbers of people charged with violating Florida Statutes 811.102 and 811.103 (illegal entry by and illegal re-entry of an “adult unauthorized alien into this state”).

Reporters confirmed the list with records from the Office of the State Courts Administrator, who compiles data submitted by 65 of Florida’s 67 counties. Duval and Flagler counties do not currently report data to the office. Data was last confirmed by the office May 20, and counties’ last deadline for reporting to the office was May 15.

Seventy-nine cases were reported to the Times by both the statewide courts office and local clerks of courts and sheriff’s offices.

Sixty-nine cases were reported by the statewide courts office.

Ten more cases were reported by local courts in Brevard, Broward, Gadsden, Hillsborough, Osceola and Pinellas counties but not by the statewide courts office.

Among those 79, records for four in Indian River County were previously publicly available, allowing reporters to obtain case details, but are now under seal. County officials have not yet identified the reason for the sealing. Reporters have no details for another case under seal in Sumter County. Details for an additional case in Leon could not be found, because it was closed to public viewing for confidentiality reasons.

Whenever possible, reporters logged details about the 79 cases by hand into a dataset. They used arrest affidavits and charging information to categorize defendants into those, at the time of arrest, charged only with illegal entry; charged only with illegal entry and driving without a license; charged only with illegal entry and driving offenses; and charged with illegal entry and other, non-driving crimes. Reporters also determined whether defendants were charged with any violent crimes. In an arrest report, police said one person had a violent criminal history but did not specify the crime. At the time of his arrest on Florida’s immigration charge, he was only charged with illegal entry, so his arrest was not counted among the violent offenses.

Booking data was obtained from local jails where available. ICE custody status was checked by searching multiple spellings of names through the agency’s online locator service, because ICE officials would not confirm the locations of all members on a list of names.

Twenty-five of the 79 defendants were arrested on April 5 or later. The last of them was arrested April 18.

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