Detainees at a Florida immigration facility, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” were allegedly punished for seeking legal advice and forced to scrawl lawyers’ phone numbers on walls and beds using soap due to a lack of writing materials, two former detainees testified this week.
The men, who have since deported to Colombia and to Haiti, gave video testimony in a federal court in Fort Myers, Florida. They claimed that monitored calls to individuals outside the detention centre were routinely disconnected whenever they attempted to discuss legal advice or secure representation.
The testimony came during a two-day hearing where civil rights lawyers are seeking a temporary injunction from US District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell. The injunction aims to ensure detainees at the state-run Everglades facility receive the same access to legal counsel as those in federally-operated centers. The remote facility was constructed last summer by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration.
The detainees’ lawsuit alleges violations of their First Amendment rights. They claim their lawyers must schedule visits three days in advance, unlike other immigration detention facilities, where attorneys can arrive during visiting hours. Furthermore, detainees are reportedly often transferred to other facilities after their lawyers have made appointments, and scheduling delays have been so extensive that some detainees missed crucial legal deadlines.
During Wednesday morning’s hearing, the former detainees testified remotely from their home countries, using translators and only their initials to protect their identities. The former detainee from Haiti recounted being asked to sign documents he did not understand while at the facility. These papers, he later discovered, were for his self-deportation to Haiti, a country he feared returning to after seeking asylum in the United States.
He was subsequently presented with a second set of documents, which someone explained would lead to his self-deportation to Mexico. He signed these out of fear of returning to Haiti, but ultimately, he was sent back to Haiti.
State officials, who are defendants in the lawsuit, denied restricting detainees’ access to their lawyers, stating that any protocols were implemented for security reasons and to ensure adequate staffing. Federal officials, also defendants, asserted that no First Amendment rights were being violated.
“Moreover, any Alligator Alcatraz policy regarding attorney-detainee communications is valid so long as it reasonably relates to legitimate penological interest,” they wrote.
The third witness to testify on Wednesday was Juan Lopez Vega, deputy field office director of ICE’s enforcement and removal operations in Miami. Vega, who unsuccessfully attempted to quash a subpoena compelling his court appearance, testified that despite his job including oversight of detainees at the state-run facility, he had only visited the center once.
This case is one of three federal lawsuits challenging practices at the controversial immigration detention center. Another lawsuit, brought by detainees in federal court in Fort Myers, argued that immigration is a federal issue, and Florida agencies and private contractors hired by the state lacked the authority to operate the facility under federal law. That lawsuit concluded earlier this month after the immigrant detainee who filed the case agreed to be removed from the United States.
In the third lawsuit, a federal judge in Miami last summer ordered the facility to wind down operations over two months because officials had failed to conduct a review of the detention center’s environmental impact. However, an appellate court panel has since put that decision on hold, allowing the facility to remain open.
Florida has been at the forefront among states in constructing facilities to support President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Beyond the Everglades facility, which began receiving detainees in July, Florida has opened another immigration detention center in northeast Florida and is considering a third facility in the Florida Panhandle.
The Everglades facility is not alone in attracting unwanted attention. Other detention centres, including ICE facilities at the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas; one in Miami; and others in California City and Adelanto, both in California, face common complaints such as poor and insufficient food and a lack of access to legal counsel.
The ICE detainee population, which excludes Alligator Alcatraz and other state-run facilities, has roughly doubled to about 70,000 since President Trump took office, fuelled by a one-time injection of $45bn for immigration detention.
