MIAMI — The attorney general of Florida asked federal courts on Wednesday to let the state’s new law take effect. This law makes it a misdemeanor for people in the U.S. illegally to enter Florida by avoiding immigration officials.

While the order is being reviewed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, State Attorney General James Uthmeier also asked U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami to put her order against following the law on hold.

“That law does nothing more than use Florida’s natural sovereign power to protect its citizens by helping the federal government enforce immigration law,” Uthmeier said in the court filing on Wednesday.

In his order on Tuesday, the judge said there was a good chance that the Florida law would be found illegal.

In her decision on Tuesday, the judge made it clear that her order applied to all of the state’s local police departments, even though Uthmeier had recently written a letter saying otherwise. The judge also set a meeting for May to decide if Uthmeier should be charged with contempt for sending the letter to Florida police departments.

“Defendants must be ready to talk about why AG Uthmeier’s failure to follow a court order shouldn’t lead to punishments,” the judge wrote.

On April 4, not long after the lawsuit against the law was filed by the Florida Immigrant Coalition and other groups with help from the American Civil Liberties Union, the judge granted a 14-day temporary restraining order. Williams added 11 more days to the order when he found out that the Florida Highway Patrol had caught more than 12 people, one of whom was a U.S. citizen.

Following Williams’s April 18 extension, Uthmeier sent a memo to state and local police officers telling them not to follow the law, even though he did not agree with the order. But after five days, he sent another memo saying that the judge was wrong legally and that he couldn’t stop the police and cops in the area from following the law.

In the state’s Wednesday request to stay the judge’s order, Uthmeier said that the Florida attorney general’s office would probably be able to defend the law because the plaintiffs didn’t have the right to sue and the state law was in line with federal laws.

It is said in the lawsuit that the new law goes against the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause by interfering with federal responsibilities.

The head of the ACLU of Florida, Bacardi Jackson, said in a statement, “Florida politicians tried to turn fear into policy and made it a crime just to exist as an immigrant in this state.” They were told by the court that immigration enforcement is the job of the federal government and not a political tool for the states.