A federal judge orders better attorney access at Florida’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — A state-run immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” must provide people detained there with better access to their attorneys, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell issued a preliminary injunction saying Alligator Alcatraz officials must provide access to timely, free, confidential, unmonitored, unrecorded outgoing legal calls. They must also provide at least one operable telephone for every 25 people held in the facility. The order also outlined information that must be made available to the detained people and their attorneys in multiple languages.

Attorneys previously filed statements with a federal court in Fort Myers saying their clients were unable to call them using staff cellphones and the attorneys were unable to make unannounced visits to the facility.

A state contractor testified in January that both options were available to detained people and their attorneys during a hearing over whether people held at the facility were getting adequate access to their lawyers.

The Florida Department of Emergency Management, the state agency overseeing the detention center, didn’t respond to an emailed inquiry Friday. The Everglades facility was built last summer at a remote airstrip by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to support President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Florida also has built a second immigration detention center in north Florida.

The lawsuit from people formerly held at the Everglades facility claims that their First Amendment rights were violated. They say attorneys have to make an appointment to visit three days in advance, unlike at other immigration detention facilities where lawyers can just show up during visiting hours; that detained people often are transferred to other facilities before their attorneys’ appointments to see them; and that scheduling delays have been so lengthy that detainees were unable to meet with attorneys before key deadlines.

State officials who are defendants in the lawsuit have denied restricting detained people’s access to their attorneys and cited security and staffing reasons for any challenges. Federal officials who also are defendants denied that detainees’ First Amendment rights were violated.