MIAMI – A judge This Friday, the US federal government ordered the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) that allows the migrants detainees in the ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention center in Florida access lawyers, while senators demand an investigation into “abuses” at the site.
Federal Judge Sheri Polster Chappell required ICE and the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) to allow legal advice to detainees at the center, west of Miami, and to publish information on how lawyers can contact migrants.
The order responds to a demand from organizations defending irregular immigration such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Sanctuary of the South, which have denounced alleged violations of due process at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’, which has become an emblem of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy after almost a year of operation.
These associations “will not stop fighting until this abusive site completely closes once and for all,” Corene Kendrick, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said in a statement.
“The ruling is a great victory and underscores what we have known to be true all along: access to legal counsel is a constitutional right, not a privilege, for everyone in this country, and the state of Florida and ICE cannot lock people up without them having a way to speak to a lawyer,” he said.
Democrats call for investigation
The site, opened in July 2025 in the middle of the Everglades swamps natural area, where reptiles such as alligators, snakes and crocodiles live, faces renewed scrutiny almost a year after its opening in Florida.
Also this Friday, Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff, of Georgia, and Richard ‘Dick’ Durbin, of Illinois, sent a letter to the new Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to demand an investigation into what they consider “credible accusations” of alleged abuses at the site.
The legislators denounced that the authorities supposedly punish detained migrants by confining them in “small cages” which they call “the box”, where they are placed for hours handcuffed with their hands and feet exposed to the sun, without access to food and water, without presenting evidence of the facts.
“These conditions reportedly suffered by detainees, as presumed, appear to violate the detention standards of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the United Nations Convention against Torture,” the Democrats wrote.
For now, it is unclear whether legal advice should be funded by American taxpayers.
