By Vanguard Staff
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Immigrants’ rights advocates filed a sweeping federal lawsuit Friday evening challenging Florida’s authority to detain people at the controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center, a sprawling and hastily constructed encampment in the Everglades. The case, M.A. v. Guthrie, seeks a writ of habeas corpus ordering the release of hundreds of people being held there and asks the court to declare Florida’s operations unlawful.
The facility, located inside Big Cypress National Preserve, has been described in court documents as a makeshift camp of tents and cages surrounded by alligators, snakes, and mosquitos, vulnerable to flooding and extreme heat. Florida officials have referred to it as “Alligator Alcatraz,” boasting that the harsh conditions would pressure people into abandoning their immigration claims. Governor Ron DeSantis said in July, “You’ll have a lot of people that will deport on their own because they don’t want to end up in Alligator Alcatraz.”
The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida, Community Justice Project, and the National Immigrant Justice Center. It argues that Florida is violating federal law by attempting to run its own immigration detention system under the guise of 287(g) agreements — a federal program that allows local law enforcement officers, after extensive training and certification, to assist ICE with narrow immigration enforcement functions. Attorneys contend the statute does not authorize state agencies to operate independent detention centers or to delegate immigration powers to private contractors.
“This facility has already become a disaster in the first few weeks of its operations, with mounting reports of disease, wrongful removals, and people being denied all kinds of basic rights,” said Spencer Amdur, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead counsel. “The government needs to follow the law when people’s lives and liberties are at stake. It’s time for this failed experiment to end.”
According to the complaint, detainees at Alligator Alcatraz are being held without charges for weeks, are excluded from ICE’s online detainee locator system, and are often denied custody or bond determinations. Some people have disappeared from federal tracking altogether, leaving their families and attorneys unable to locate them. In many cases, detainees have been prevented from filing petitions with immigration courts, while others report being pressured to sign “voluntary” removal orders without legal counsel.
The lawsuit describes conditions at the camp as unsafe, unsanitary, and intentionally punitive. It says detainees are housed in tents that flood during summer rains and suffer constant mosquito infestations, sewage leaks, and extreme restrictions on access to clean water. Many report being allowed to shower only once every several days and denied drinking water except at mealtimes. Respiratory illnesses have spread throughout the camp, and detainees have been hospitalized for emergency medical issues. Some have been punished by being restrained outdoors for hours in the sun, exposed to swarms of insects.
One of the named plaintiffs, identified as M.A., has lived in the United States since 2018, is married to a U.S. citizen, and has five U.S.-citizen stepchildren. He entered the country on a visa and applied for asylum, receiving a work permit, Social Security card, and driver’s license. He was arrested outside his home in July and pressured to sign an English-only form he could not read, later told it was a voluntary removal order. Since being detained at the facility, he has been hospitalized twice and is now in a wheelchair. He has never appeared in ICE’s detainee locator system.
Amy Godshall, legal fellow and immigrants’ rights attorney with the ACLU of Florida, said Florida’s actions have created a crisis. “Florida has wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to unlawfully detain people in this abusive immigration detention center. Not only have the conditions been abhorrent, but the detention itself is unlawful. People are being held without charge, cut off from their attorneys, and made invisible in the immigration system. Families cannot even find out where their loved ones are. This is a crisis created entirely by the state’s reckless decision to ignore federal law and invent its own immigration jail in the middle of the Everglades.”
Miriam Haskell, senior attorney and director of litigation at Community Justice Project, emphasized that immigrant communities are directly impacted. “Our immigrant communities have always been right about this: We are Floridians, too, and deserve the same respect, compassion and due process as anyone else in this state. Florida’s authoritarian experiment cannot continue unchecked, and we are confident the court will see that there is no lawful authority for Florida to operate this immigration facility.”
Mark Fleming, associate director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center, called Florida’s effort unprecedented. “It is truly unprecedented for a state to claim authority to operate its own, independent immigration detention system. The lack of accountability and resulting deprivation at this remote and inhumane detention camp in the Florida Everglades is exactly why Congress has made it unlawful and directed only the federal government to have custody over noncitizens as they go through the immigration system.”
The lawsuit names a wide range of defendants, including the heads of the Florida Department of Corrections, Florida Highway Patrol, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Florida National Guard, Florida State Guard, and other state agencies. It also names Matthew Mordant, a private contractor employed by Critical Response Strategies who serves as the warden of Alligator Alcatraz. Florida has argued in other litigation that these officials “have legal custody over people detained at Alligator Alcatraz” and are responsible for its operations.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs are seeking a class action on behalf of all current and future detainees at the facility, which has a capacity of 3,000 people. The complaint asks the court to issue a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction barring Florida from detaining anyone at Alligator Alcatraz, followed by a permanent injunction and declaratory judgment that the state lacks legal authority to operate the detention center.
If successful, the lawsuit could shut down what critics describe as an unlawful and dangerous experiment in state-run immigration detention, one that advocates say has already inflicted irreparable harm on hundreds of people in its first weeks of operation.
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