Judge Orders “Alligator Alcatraz” Immigration Facility Shut Down

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The brutal “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades is shutting down in compliance with a district judge’s late August ruling that the facility violated federal environmental laws. The judge’s ruling did not take into consideration the human cost—the immigrants, mainly workers, who have been detained there under brutal conditions by design, abuse of detainees, and denial of due process.

The judge’s preliminary injunction blocked any further expansion and called for the facility to be shut down and dismantled within 60 days. The State of Florida has already filed an appeal, claiming they run the facility rather than the federal government and are not bound by the specific federal environmental regulations. The facility is in the process of shutting down, with trucks hauling equipment and supplies out of the center and vans and buses leaving the facility with detainees. The Associated Press estimated Florida could be out some $218 million for construction.

Three lawsuits have challenged the existence of the tauntingly named “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility. The first was filed by environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe, who hold the land sacred, arguing that the construction of the center violated federal laws by circumventing public input of environmental impact assessment. Another lawsuit from the ACLU contends that the Trump administration violated detainees’ constitutional rights by holding them without charges and denying access to legal counsel. A third lawsuit challenges the deplorable conditions faced by inmates.

The hearings on constitution rights of detainees are set to begin 9/4, with the detainees’ lawyers in the suit arguing in court papers that the facility still holds detainees and so the shut-down order should not interfere with their case.

Reports emerged this past week of an uprising at the “Alligator Alcatraz” facility where guards attacked detainees with tear gas, beating detainees while a helicopter circled overhead. According to unconfirmed reports from detainees cited by The Guardian, several detainees began shouting “freedom” after one received news that a family member had died, leading to the uprising and the brutal suppression from the guards. This incident followed the hunger strike against torturous conditions at the facility which lasted that for more than 14 days until the strike was broken by transferring the participating detainees. The DeSantis administration and DHS deny the hunger strike ever took place.

One detainee, Luis Manuel Rivas Velasquez, who is seeking to self-deport, was believed dead by his family and attorneys when ICE disappeared the man after he fainted in early August. He had fainted from an illness which was spreading in the facility and after being denied medical care, according to statements from Velasquez. Instead, he was flown to a detention facility in El Paso, Texas, where he resurfaced days later. Rivas Velasquez later described that he and fellow detainees were treated like animals in unbearable conditions in both “Alligator Alcatraz” and the El Paso facility. The very concept of “Alligator Alcatraz” was intended to encourage immigrants to self-deport with the threat of the allegedly deadly and inhospitable environment, including notorious mentions of pythons and alligators—while the real terror is from the facility unfit for human habitation and from the abuse by immigration officials.

This shift in terror tactics to encourage self-deportation to avoid mass opposition and save costs in the case of “Alligator Alcatraz” met failure after failure as the detainees rebelled from within the walls while the rushed, 8-day construction process was protested against by demonstrations lining the highway to the site.

With the shut-down order, Governor DeSantis announced plans to open a new immigration detention and deportation facility in north Florida called the “Deportation Depot”. Other states have joined the trend of building detention centers with names mocking immigrants—including Indiana’s “Speedway Slammer” and the “Cornhusker Clink” in Nebraska—signaling more grotesque policies aimed against immigrant workers across the United States.

Image: President Trump, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, ICE Director Todd M. Lyons, and Executive Director of Florida Division of Emergency Management Kevin Guthrie tour the infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” facility on July 1. Department of Homeland Security.

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