ORLANDO, Fla. — With two other lawsuits already making their way through the legal system, the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention center in South Florida has been hit with a third.
In the suit, which was filed Friday, a current detainee at the immigration detention center says his confinement violates federal law because the state of Florida had no authority to create the center in the first place.
What You Need To Know
A current detainee at the South Florida immigrant detention center commonly known as “Alligator Alcatraz” filed a lawsuit Friday challenging the state’s authority to operate the facility
The lawsuit argues that there is nothing in federal law that gives a state the ability to open and operate an independent immigration detention center
State officials have responded to two other lawsuits challenging the environmental impact of the facility and the treatment of detainees, but Friday’s lawsuit challenges their basic ability to detain and hold immigrants at a state facility
The hastily constructed detention center in the Everglades was presented by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a one-stop-shop for immigration detentions and deportations, especially considering it includes a previously built runway long enough to accommodate Air Force One.
“So, you’ll be able to bring people in, they’ll get processed, they have an order of removal and they can be queued, and the federal government can fly right on the runway, right there. You literally drive 2,000 feet, put them on a plane and then they’re gone. It’s very logistically simple,” DeSantis said during a budget-signing event on June 30, one day before President Donald Trump came to visit the site personally.
But now a detainee at the site — only identified in court documents as M.A. — is challenging its very existence.
“Congress required ICE to maintain federal custody and control over immigration detainees, and it imposed stringent requirements for deputizing state officers to help with removal efforts, all to ensure that immigration enforcement would be carried out in line with federal standards, by individuals who are prepared to undertake the many complex tasks involved in immigration detention,” the lawsuit states. “‘Alligator Alcatraz’ flouts those rules.”
The lawsuit argues that the section of U.S. Code that the DeSantis administration has cited as the source of its authority to construct and run the detention site — 8 U.S.C. § 1357(g), titled “Performance of immigration officer functions by State officers and employees” — only applies to individuals, not state agencies.
“Several Florida agencies, including many of the Defendants in this case, have signed 287(g) agreements with ICE,” the lawsuit says. “But those agreements do not give any authority to the state agencies themselves—only to those individual employees who have been fully trained and certified by DHS.”
The detainee’s lawsuit notes that even using that part of the U.S. Code to rationalize a detention center is unique.
“No other immigration detention facility in the country has ever operated based on 8 U.S.C. § 1357(g),” it said. “In the thirty years since the statute was enacted, state officers have never claimed the authority to detain people under this statute, other than the short period after an arrest during transport to an ICE facility.”
The lawsuit notes that officials from Florida and the federal government have said in court filings in other cases that the state “exercises ‘complete discretion’ over operations and over who is detained at the facility.”
That would run counter to guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in May 2022, which, at the time, specifically addressed a state’s discretion regarding immigration.
“State governments do not have authority, however, to directly regulate aliens and immigration … such as by determining which aliens may be admitted to the United States or by setting the terms and conditions under which those aliens may remain,” the guidance says.
The lawsuit makes numerous other arguments — some of which, the suit notes are at the center of other cases — but narrows it down ultimately to two counts: The current operation of “Alligator Alcatraz” by the state of Florida violates 8 U.S.C. § 1357(g), and that there is no federal law in place that would allow Florida to operate the site.
The lawsuit asks the court to certify a class made up of current and future “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees; put a restraining order and preliminary injunction in place that would bar the state from detaining members of the class; issue a writ of habeas corpus and issue a permanent injunction barring the detention of class members at the site; issue a declaratory judgment that the state does not have the authority to detain immigrants at the detention center; and “such other relief as the Court deems necessary and proper.”
The detainee filing the lawsuit is represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Florida, Community Justice Project, Inc., and the National Immigrant Justice Center.
The state is facing two other lawsuits — with one challenging the facility on environmental grounds prompting a judge to issue an injunction that would prevent “Alligator Alcatraz” from increasing operations and taking additional detainees, and require the removal of key aspect of the site.
The state has appealed the ruling.