{"id":43334,"date":"2025-07-28T19:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T19:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/43334\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T19:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T19:26:07","slug":"alligator-alcatraz-detainees-held-without-charges-barred-from-legal-access-attorneys-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/43334\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detainees held without charges, barred from legal access, attorneys say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Civil rights lawyers seeking a temporary restraining order against an immigration detention center<\/a> in the Florida Everglades say that \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d detainees have been barred from meeting attorneys, are being held without any charges and that a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings.<\/p>\n

The immigration attorneys argued Monday during a virtual hearing that the detainees\u2019 constitutional rights were being violated and that 100 detainees already had been deported<\/a> from \u201cAlligator Alcatraz.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawyers who have shown up for bond hearings for \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d detainees have been told that the immigration court doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an emergency situation,\u201d Eunice Cho, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, said during the hearing in federal court in Miami. \u201cOfficers at \u2018Alligator Alcatraz\u2019 are going around trying to force people to sign deportation orders without the ability to speak to counsel.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Nicholas Meros, an attorney representing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the situation had evolved since the civil rights groups\u2019 lawsuit was filed July 16. Video-conference rooms had been set up so detainees can talk to attorneys, and in-person meetings between detainees and attorneys had started.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been a number of facts that have changed,\u201d Meros said during Monday\u2019s hearing<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz, an appointee of President Donald Trump, didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

The judge warned that his role was to provide relief to any proven constitutional violations and said that \u201cattempts to transform the court into the warden of \u2018Alligator Alcatraz\u2019 is not going to happen here.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s part of the problem \u2014 who is doing what in this facility?\u201d Ruiz said.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit is the second one challenging \u201cAlligator Alcatraz.\u201d Environmental groups last month sued federal and state officials asking that the project built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades<\/a> be halted because the process didn\u2019t follow state and federal environmental laws.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the state of Florida and federal government have argued in both cases that the federal court\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the activities that plaintiffs allege harm their interests \u2014 construction, paving, detention \u2014 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,\u201d U.S. Department of Justice attorneys said Friday in a court filing for the environmental lawsuit.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s aggressive push<\/a> to support President Donald Trump\u2019s crackdown on illegal immigration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

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

\u201cThe reality is, if you don\u2019t support sending somebody back to their own country who came in illegally and has already been ordered that they\u2019re violating the law and ordered to be removed, if you don\u2019t support that, then you are for an open border,\u201d DeSantis said. \u201cI reject that. That is not how a country can operate.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Civil rights lawyers seeking a temporary restraining order against an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1927,17984,2302,3827,12,2822,2808,793,3075,790,3073,4801,3130,2221,2821,23294,3,34663,111,2825,34662,2819,795,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-43334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-ap-top-news","tag-civil-rights","tag-courts","tag-domestic-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-general-news","tag-human-rights","tag-immigration","tag-indictments","tag-kristi-noem","tag-lawsuits","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-miami","tag-mike-schneider","tag-news","tag-nicholas-meros","tag-politics","tag-prisons","tag-rodolfo-ruiz","tag-ron-desantis","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}