TALLAHASSEE — A class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges that people held at the Everglades-based immigrant-detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” are being prevented from having access to lawyers and “effectively have no way to contest their detention.”
“No protocols exist at this facility for providing standard means of confidential attorney-client communication, such as in-person attorney visitation and phone or video calls that are available at any other detention facility, jail or prison,” the lawsuit, filed in the federal Southern District of Florida, said. “The only way that detained people can communicate with the outside world is via infrequent access to collect pay phone calls that are monitored and recorded, and last approximately five minutes.”
The lawsuit also alleges that lawyers have been barred from entering the facility in the Everglades and that officials have “made it virtually impossible for detainees, or their counsel, to file documents required to contest their detention with the immigration court.”
“No instruction exists as to which immigration courts have been designated for submission of motions for bond redetermination for people detained at Alligator Alcatraz,” the lawsuit, filed by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Immigrant Justice, said. “As a result, detainees held at Alligator Alcatraz effectively have no way to contest their detention.”
The ACLU announced the lawsuit Wednesday evening.
The lawsuit names as plaintiffs four men who are detained at the facility, three law firms, a legal-services organization and an attorney. It names as defendants federal and state officials and agencies, including U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The lawsuit, which alleges First Amendment and due-process violations, was the latest move in the controversy over the detention facility that the state built in recent weeks at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, a remote site used for flight training and surrounded by the Everglades and the Big Cypress National Preserve.
DeSantis and other state and federal officials have touted the facility as helping carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts for people who are in the country illegally. The project has drawn national attention, with the state Republican Party even selling Alligator Alcatraz merchandise.
But opponents have blasted conditions at the facility and argued it will harm the Everglades and the national preserve. Environmental groups last month filed a separate lawsuit that alleges violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, a federal law that requires evaluating potential environmental impacts before such a project can move forward.
State officials have said the federal government will reimburse Florida for costs related to the Everglades facility. They also announced last month plans to build a second detention facility at North Florida’s Camp Blanding, a training site for the Florida National Guard.
DeSantis indicated Wednesday that plans for the Camp Blanding facility would move forward “once there’s a demand” for bed space and more detainees are housed at the Everglades site.
“Once there’s a demand, then we would be able to go for Camp Blanding. But what I don’t want to do is set up Blanding if one is 60 percent full and then the other is 40 percent. I’d rather just channel everyone to Alligator (Alcatraz), since it’s easier,” DeSantis told reporters at an event in Tampa.
DeSantis said the Everglades facility can “easily” house 3,000 to 4,000 detainees.
“We have not … received that many illegal aliens there yet, but it has grown pretty quickly,” the governor said.
Camp Blanding could house fewer detainees and become active “in a week or two,” if needed, according to DeSantis.
“I don’t want to be creating some structure that can hold 2,000 illegals and then we end up having, like,150 there after a week. And I don’t think that’s the trend,” he said.
DeSantis administration officials did not respond Wednesday to a request for information about the number of detainees being held at the South Florida center.
Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity on June 27 filed the lawsuit about potential environmental impacts. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida this week filed a motion seeking to join the case.
DeSantis has disputed that the facility threatens the environment, pointing, in part, to the decades-old airport at the site.
Also on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez recused himself from the environmental groups’ lawsuit, which was reassigned to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams. As is typical in such instances, Martinez did not give a reason for stepping aside.
Williams recently drew headlines when she held Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier in civil contempt in a lawsuit stemming from a law passed during a February special legislative session that created state crimes for undocumented immigrants who enter or re-enter Florida.
Williams in April blocked enforcement of the law, ruling that it likely was preempted by federal immigration-enforcement authority. The contempt ruling stemmed from a letter the Uthmeier sent to law-enforcement agencies after she blocked the law.
