Immigration Detention

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.

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.

The Fallout from the immigration raids conducted by Immigration & Customs Enforcement are beginning to take a toll on small businesses.

Detainees arriving at the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades are given color-coded uniforms and segregated based on criminal history and flight risk. That is according to a handbook made public as part of a lawsuit over attorney access at the site known as "Alligator Alcatraz." Civil rights and environmental groups have filed three lawsuits over conditions. In one lawsuit, civil rights groups argued the facility operates outside federal law. They asked a federal judge in Fort Myers this week to stop the facility from holding detainees. A different federal judge ordered it closed in August for environmental reasons, but it remains open pending appeals.

A federal appeals court panel has put on hold a lower court judge's order to wind down operations of the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz." The three-judge panel in Atlanta on Thursday decided by a 2-1 vote to stay the federal judge's order pending the outcome of an appeal. The judges in the majority said it was in the public interest. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued a preliminary injunction last month ordering operations at the facility to be wound down by the end of October, with detainees transferred to other facilities and equipment and fencing removed.

A former detainee at Alligator Alcatraz describes conditions and the circumstances of his apprehension by a border patrol agent.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams has refused to pause her order requiring state and federal officials to wind down operations at an immigrant-detention center in the Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” Williams issued a preliminary injunction last week in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe, finding state and federal officials failed to comply with a federal law requiring an environmental impact study be conducted before the remote facility was constructed.

Prayer vigil set for Aug. 31 outside immigrant detention camp in the Everglades

A top Florida official says the controversial state-run immigration detention facility in the Everglades will likely be empty in a matter of days, even as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration and the federal government fight a judge's order to shutter the facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by late October. That's according to an email exchange shared with The Associated Press.

Amid a flurry of legal fights, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to put on hold a judge’s ruling that required winding down operations of the Everglades immigrant-detention facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”Attorneys for the state filed a 52-page motion at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seeking a stay of a preliminary injunction issued last week by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups and joined by the Miccosukee Tribe.