ICE Detainers

The government's focus on perceived illegal immigration has reached a new high as over 65,000 people are being held in ICE Detention Centers, surpassing previous records.

A report released Wednesday by Amnesty International alleges cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment at two immigration detention centers in Florida: The Everglades Detention Facility (“Alligator Alcatraz”) in eastern Collier County and the Krome North Service Processing Center ("Krome") in Miami.

Seven years ago, during the first administration of President Donald Trump, children were taken from their families the moment they crossed the border into the United States. Under a policy of zero tolerance for illegal crossing, Customs and Border Protection officers detained adults while children were sent into the federal shelter system. The aim: to deter other families from following. But after widespread public outcry and a lawsuit, the administration ended it. Today, family separations are back, only now they are happening all across the country.

An immigration support group was warning people Wednesday morning to avoid Immokalee after a number of people were reported to have been taken off a work bus in the area. The Facebook warning from Unidos Immokalee urged people to not “Enter or leave Immokalee. Do not depart Immokalee.”

Thousands of immigrants have been transferred from jails and prisons across Florida into ICE facilities since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. The tool behind this pipeline is called a detainer: a request by the federal agency to state and local law enforcement to hold individuals who are not U.S. citizens for up to 48 hours past their scheduled release for possible detention and deportation.

Calling it "exactly the kind of disaster that Congress took pains to avoid," attorneys for immigrants held at a detention center in the Everglades filed a lawsuit alleging Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration lacks the authority to run the facility.The lawsuit, filed Friday in the federal court’s Middle District of Florida, is the third major legal challenge to the detention center, erected by the DeSantis’ administration as part of the state’s support of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.

A federal judge has halted further expansion of the immigration detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Florida Everglades. The judge on Thursday also ordered the facility to wind down operations within two months. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams stated that Florida officials never adequately explained the need for the facility in the middle of the sensitive wetlands. She also noted that state and federal defendants failed to conduct an environmental review before building the detention center. Federal and Florida officials had hailed the facility as a model for President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is ramping up its hiring efforts to support President Donald Trump's mass deportation goals. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia is training new recruits. Concerns about training standards have been raised, but ICE officials insist they are maintaining quality. Training includes firearms, driving techniques, de-escalation and immigration law, with a focus on the Fourth Amendment and immigration law. The agency is receiving $76.5 billion from Congress, with $30 billion earmarked for new staff. ICE aims to hire 10,000 new deportation officers by the end of the year.

Civil rights lawyers say many migrant detainees in Florida's "Alligator Alcatraz" are being barred from meeting regularly with attorneys and are being held in dangerous conditions.

Florida's corrections agency and ICE updated an agreement on handling federal immigration detainees, but they did it more than a month after 'Alligator Alcatraz' opened. This update was made public Thursday in court documents. The facility built in the Florida Everglades has faced criticism for allegedly restricting detainees' access to attorneys and immigration courts. A civil rights lawsuit has been filed, and a federal judge has ordered officials to clarify who has legal authority over detainees. Another judge in a separate lawsuit temporarily halted construction on Thursday while she considers whether it violates environmental laws. Florida claims detainees have had access to legal counsel.