Attorneys: ’Alligator Alcatraz’ detainees held without charges, barred from legal access

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Civil rights lawyers seeking a temporary restraining order against an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades say that “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been barred from meeting attorneys, are being held without any charges and that a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings.

The immigration attorneys argued Monday during a virtual hearing that the detainees’ constitutional rights were being violated and that 100 detainees already had been deported from “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Lawyers who have shown up for bond hearings for “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been told that the immigration court doesn’t have jurisdiction over their clients, and the civil rights attorneys demanded that federal and state officials identify an immigration court that has jurisdiction over the detainees so it can start accepting petitions for bond.

“This is an emergency situation,” Eunice Cho, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, said during the hearing in federal court in Miami. “Officers at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ are going around trying to force people to sign deportation orders without the ability to speak to counsel.”

But Nicholas Meros, an attorney representing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the situation had evolved since the civil rights groups’ lawsuit was filed July 16. Videoconference rooms had been set up so detainees can talk to attorneys, and in-person meetings between detainees and attorneys had started.

“There have been a number of facts that have changed,” Meros said during Monday’s hearing.

U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz, an appointee of President Donald Trump, didn’t make an immediate ruling. He asked the civil rights attorneys to refile their complaint to consolidate their pleadings as a request for a preliminary injunction, and he set a briefing schedule that will end with an in-person court hearing on Aug. 18.

The judge warned that his role was to provide relief to any proven constitutional violations and said that “attempts to transform the court into the warden of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is not going to happen here.” The judge also allowed the civil rights groups to argue for the release of any agreements between the federal and state governments showing who has authority over the detention center, a murky issue since it opened a month ago.

Knowing more about any agreements “would be good for all sides since the court may be walking into a bit of a black hole about the interplay between the federal and state authorities and certainly jurisdictional concerns,” Ruiz said. “And that’s part of the problem — who is doing what in this facility?”

The lawsuit is the second one challenging “Alligator Alcatraz.” Environmental groups last month sued federal and state officials asking that the project built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades be halted because the process didn’t follow state and federal environmental laws.

Attorneys for the state of Florida and federal government have argued in both cases that the federal court’s southern district in Florida was the wrong venue since the airstrip is located in neighboring Collier County, which is a part of the middle district, even though the property is owned by Miami-Dade County. They also argued that decision-making took place in Tallahassee, which is in the northern district. A hearing over whether the southern district venue is proper in the environmental case is set for Wednesday.

“All the activities that plaintiffs allege harm their interests — construction, paving, detention — occurred in the Middle District, not in the Southern District. And all the relevant decision-making occurred in either the Middle District or the Northern District of Florida,” U.S. Department of Justice attorneys said Friday in a court filing for the environmental lawsuit.

Critics have condemned the facility as a cruel and inhumane threat to detainees, while DeSantis and other Republican state officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has praised Florida for coming forward with the idea, as the department looks to significantly expand its immigration detention capacity.

At a news conference in Panama City Beach on Monday, DeSantis said he hoped the pace of deportations picked up at the facility.

“The reality is, if you don’t support sending somebody back to their own country who came in illegally and has already been ordered that they’re violating the law and ordered to be removed, if you don’t support that, then you are for an open border,” DeSantis said. “I reject that. That is not how a country can operate.”