ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Lawyers representing the U.S. government have acknowledged that the immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades, commonly referred to as “Alligator Alcatraz,” may be housing individuals who have never encountered removal proceedings. This statement contradicts what Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis, has claimed since its opening in July.
The U.S. Department of Justice attorneys made this admission in a Thursday court filing, arguing that the detainees at the Everglades facility lack the commonalities necessary to be categorized as a single group in a lawsuit concerning their access to legal representation.
A removal proceeding is a legal process conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to determine if a person is subject to deportation from the United States.
The DOJ attorneys wrote that the detainees at the Everglades facility have too many different immigration statuses to be considered a class.
“The proposed group encompasses all detainees at Alligator Alcatraz, a facility that accommodates detainees at various stages of immigration processing — potentially including those never involved in removal proceedings, those pending placement in removal proceedings, those with final removal orders, those subject to expedited removal, and those held to facilitate removal from the U.S. following a final order of removal,” the lawyers stated.
Since the facility’s inauguration, DeSantis has consistently claimed that all individuals there have been adjudicated as not legally present in the United States.
During a July 25 news conference outside the detention center, DeSantis said, “Everybody here is already on a final removal order.”
“They have been ordered to be removed from the country,” he added.
During a speech on July 29 to the Florida Sheriffs Association conference, the Republican governor asserted, “Individuals at Alligator Alcatraz are in the country illegally, and every one of them has received a final removal order.”
He added, “So, if you have an order to be removed, what is the possible objection to the federal government enforcing that removal order?”
DeSantis’ press office didn’t respond Monday morning to an email seeking comment.
The court filing by the DOJ attorneys was made in a lawsuit in which civil rights groups allege the facility’s detainees have been denied proper access to attorneys in violation of their constitutional rights. The civil rights groups on Thursday asked a federal judge in Fort Myers for a preliminary injunction that would establish stronger protections for detainees to meet with attorneys privately and share documents confidentially.
The court case is one of three lawsuits filed by environmental and civil rights groups over the detention center, which was hastily built this summer by the state of Florida and operated by private contractors and state agencies.
A federal judge in Miami ordered in August that the facility must wind down operations within two months, agreeing with environmental groups that the remote airstrip site wasn’t given a proper environmental review before it was converted into an immigration detention center. But operations continued after the judge’s preliminary injunction was put on hold in early September by an appellate court panel. At one point, the facility held more than 900 detainees, but most of them were transferred after the initial injunction. It wasn’t clear on Monday how many detainees were at the center, which was built to hold 3,000 people.
President Donald Trump toured the facility in July and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration pushes to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations. Federal officials on Friday confirmed that Florida has been approved for a $608 million reimbursement for the costs of building and running the immigration detention center.
