Alligator Alcatraz Detainees to Testify01/28 06:05

   

   FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) -- Former detainees planned to testify Wednesday about 
conditions at an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known 
as "Alligator Alcatraz," as a federal judge considers during a two-day hearing 
whether they are getting sufficient access to the legal system.

   Civil rights attorneys representing the detainees were seeking a temporary 
injunction from U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell in Fort Myers that 
would ensure that detainees at the state-run Everglades facility get the same 
access to their attorneys as they do at federally-run detention centers. The 
Everglades facility was built last summer at a remote airstrip by Republican 
Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration.

   The detainees' lawsuit claims that their First Amendment rights are being 
violated. They say their 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 detainees often are transferred to 
other facilities after their attorneys had made an appointment to see them; and 
that scheduling delays have been so lengthy that detainees were unable to meet 
with attorneys before key deadlines.

   "Access to counsel at Alligator Alcatraz is dramatically more restrictive 
than at other immigration facilities and runs afoul of the requirements that 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has in place for detention facilities," the 
civil rights attorneys wrote in their request for an injunction.

   State officials who are defendants in the lawsuit denied restricting the 
detainees' access to their attorneys and said any protocols were in place for 
security reasons and to make sure there was sufficient staffing. Federal 
officials who also are defendants said that no First Amendment rights were 
being violated.

   "Moreover, any Alligator Alcatraz policy regarding attorney-detainee 
communications is valid so long as it reasonably relates to legitimate 
penological interest," they wrote.

   Among those expected to testify Wednesday was Juan Lopez Vega, deputy field 
office director of ICE's enforcement and removal operations in Miami, who 
unsuccessfully tried to quash a subpoena compelling him to show up in court on 
Wednesday.

   The case over access to the legal system was one of three federal lawsuits 
challenging practices at the immigration detention center. Another lawsuit 
brought by detainees in federal court in Fort Myers argued that immigration was 
a federal issue, and Florida agencies and private contractors hired by the 
state had no authority to operate the facility under federal law. That lawsuit 
ended earlier this month after the immigrant detainee who filed the case agreed 
to be removed from the United States.

   In the third lawsuit, a federal judge in Miami last summer ordered the 
facility to wind down operations over two months because officials had failed 
to do a review of the detention center's environmental impact. But an appellate 
court panel put that decision on hold for the time being, allowing the facility 
to stay open.