ORLANDO, Fla. — Attorneys for detainees at the Florida immigration detention center nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" told a federal court Thursday that there are still no protocols for lawyers to contact clients there and that detainees are frequently transferred just before scheduled visits, continuing what the lawyers say are unconstitutional obstacles to confidential legal access.
In new court papers filed Sept. 12, 2025, the lawyers said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has omitted information about detainees at the facility from its online locator system, preventing attorneys from confirming whether clients are being held there. The filings also describe in-person meetings that must be scheduled three days in advance, videoconferences that take place in non-soundproof cages with staff nearby, and client documents subject to review by staff.
The filings were submitted in response to a transfer of the lawyers' federal lawsuit from Miami to Fort Myers. The legal-rights case seeks to challenge practices that attorneys say deny detainees private meetings with immigration lawyers while they are held at the facility on an isolated airstrip in the Everglades.
"Detained individuals have a First Amendment right to communicate with their attorneys in confidence," the attorneys wrote in the filing. They also asked a judge to allow them to keep their clients anonymous in public court filings and to use pseudonyms because of what they described as an environment of increasing anti-immigrant rhetoric.
The center, built by the state of Florida in late June, was constructed to support President Donald Trump's push to increase deportations, the state has said. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration contracted private firms to implement operations on the remote site. Trump toured the facility in July and described it as a potential model for other locations as the federal government seeks to expand detention capacity.
The detention center has been the subject of multiple legal challenges. A separate environmental lawsuit produced a preliminary injunction requiring the facility to wind down operations by the end of October, but a federal appeals court panel last week put that injunction on hold, allowing operations to continue while the appeal proceeds. Another federal lawsuit contends that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility and that Florida agencies and the private contractors lack authority to operate the facility.
Attorneys said the scheduling requirement for in-person visits gives the facility the opportunity to transfer detainees out before meetings occur, effectively denying access to counsel. They also said that during video calls detainees are placed in enclosures that do not ensure confidentiality, with staff able to overhear conversations.
ICE did not immediately comment in the filings, and the state defendants argued the requested in-person visit by attorneys to the facility in mid-October was unnecessary, according to the court papers. The filings also note reports by advocates and some former detainees describing unsanitary conditions and restricted access to the legal system at the site.
The dispute over legal access at the Florida facility arrives as other states have announced plans to open or expand immigration detention centers, and as federal and state authorities debate the scope of state involvement in immigration enforcement. The attorneys' motion seeks court intervention to establish procedures guaranteeing private, confidential communication between detainees and their lawyers and to prevent transfers that would frustrate scheduled legal visits.
The court will consider the petitions as the separate appeals and lawsuits proceed. The filings underscore ongoing litigation over the facility's operations and the broader legal and political questions about the role of state-run or state-contracted detention sites in federal immigration enforcement.