Attorneys: 'Alligator Alcatraz' detainees held without charges, barred from legal access [View all]

Source: Associated Press

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

By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Updated 4:11 PM EDT, July 28, 2025

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.”

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/florida-immigration-alligator-alcatraz-8607894cc7bab9c17bce30fdf541f0bc