Immigrants

A report in the New York Times said that federal and state officials are considering closing the Everglades detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz.

A lawyer says guards severely beat and pepper-sprayed detainees at a state-run immigration detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Florida Everglades. A lawyer for two of the detainees says the beating happened after they complained about not having phone access on April 2. The lawyer says the guards taunted and then attacked the detainees. Guards punched one of her clients in the face and broke another detainee's wrist. Phone service was restored the next day without explanation. The allegations are detailed in a court filing accusing officials of not complying with a judge's order to provide proper phone access for legal calls.

President Donald Trump has shared a video of a deadly attack at a Florida gas station, using it to justify his mass deportation agenda. Rolbert Joachin, 40, is charged with killing a woman on April 2 in Fort Myers. Trump and the Department of Homeland Security said Joachin is from Haiti. Critics argue Trump unfairly paints immigrants as criminals. Joachin reportedly confessed and is set for arraignment on May 4. Trump blames President Biden for granting Joachin Temporary Protected Status. This status allows immigrants from troubled countries to stay temporarily in the U.S., a policy Trump has criticized.

Environmental groups have asked a federal appellate court panel to lift its temporary halt on closing an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades. Known as "Alligator Alcatraz," the center remains open due to arguments by Florida and the Trump administration. They claimed the state hadn't gotten federal reimbursement, so it wasn't required to follow federal environmental law. On Tuesday, during a hearing in Miami, the judges questioned how much control the federal government had over the state-built facility. Florida was notified in late September of $608 million in federal funding approval. The environmental lawsuit was one of three federal challenges to the facility since it opened.

A federal judge has ruled that the immigration detention facility known as "Alligator Alcatraz" must provide people detained there with better access to their attorneys. U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell issued a preliminary injunction Friday saying officials at the Florida facility must provide access to timely, free, confidential, unmonitored, unrecorded outgoing legal calls. They must also provide at least one operable telephone for every 25 people detained there. The order also outlined information that must be made available to detained people and their attorneys in multiple languages. The lawsuit says the rules force visits to be booked three days ahead. It says delays and transfers block legal help. State and federal officials deny rights violations.

It was a show of protest, frustration, disaffection and concern and it was shared by thousands Saturday in various Southwest Florida sites, other parts of the state and across the United States and the world. The No Kings III event was billed as a protest rally and drew people of many different political affiliations who said they had concerns with how the current administration in Washington run by President Donald Trump was handling things.

Federal immigration agents are free and clear to do what they see fit while working with members of the Transportation Security Administration at Southwest Florida International Airport. That’s the assessment of Cecil Pendergrass, a Lee County Commissioner and chairman of the Lee County Port Authority.

Gov. Ron DeSantis rebuked some of Florida’s top law enforcement officials Thursday, criticizing their calls to Congress and President Donald Trump to work on a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants. “This idea that unless you’re an axe murderer you should be able to stay, that is not consistent with our laws, and it’s also not good policy,” DeSantis said at an event in Bradenton.

A group of sheriffs on a state immigration enforcement board sharply criticized the federal government’s mass deportation efforts Monday, a stark departure from hardline policies in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has spearheaded collaboration with federal officials to remove all undocumented immigrants.

Florida initially sought $1.4 billion from the feds for Alligator Alcatraz.