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While the Trump administration mulls a lawsuit from Florida advocacy groups over a lack of access to legal counsel for detainees held at Florida’s immigration facility, “Alligator Alcatraz,” the debate surrounding the new center rages on. And one professor of law at Florida International University believes the facility reflects broader problems in how the U.S. is handling immigration.
On July 1, the day before the first detainees arrived, President Donald Trump visited the airstrip site in Florida’s Everglades alongside Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The three toured the grounds of what they described as a potential model for future immigration detention centers in other states.
The facility, built in just eight days, has sparked outrage from environmental and social activists for reported inhumane conditions and posing environmental issues. It has also caught the eye of FIU law professor Juan Carlos Gomez, who believes global awareness is vital.
“Because when the government targets vulnerable populations,” he added, “when it’s done with that vulnerable population, they go for the next group. And you can be that next group.”
Noem sees it another way, and applauds what the state has been able to accomplish.
“Florida was unique and what they presented to us, and I would ask every other Governor to do the exact same thing,” Noem said during the excursion. “We can hold individuals here, they can have their hearings, get due process, and then immediately be flown back home to their home country.”
On July 16, days after the launch, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, an advocacy group, and the nonprofit law firm Americans for Immigrant Justice announced the class-action lawsuit on behalf of “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees and legal service organizations. This sort of suit allows one or more individuals to sue on behalf of a larger group of people with similar claims.
“All we’re asking for is for what is fair and to allow people to have access to their attorneys, to be able to fight their case and allow them to have basic constitutional rights,” Saman Movassaghi Gonzalez, managing attorney of U.S. Immigration Law Counsel, said, in an Instagram post.
The U.S. Immigration Law Counsel, based in Pembroke Pines, is one of the five legal advisor organizations listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The other legal service providers are Florida Keys Immigration, Law Offices of Catherine Perez PLLC, Sanctuary of the South, and Sanabria & Associates. They have all experienced little to no access to their clients detained at “Alligator Alcatraz.”
In a news release issued by the ACLU of Florida on July 16, Eunice Cho, senior counsel with the ACLU’s National Prison Project and the lead attorney in the case, said that “the U.S. Constitution does not allow the government to simply lock people away without any ability to communicate with counsel or to petition the court for release from custody. The government may not trample on these most fundamental protections for people held in its custody.”
The lawsuit details challenges for attorney-client communication, as the only option given to detainees is monitored and recorded collect pay phone calls, limited in access, and lasting around five minutes. Attorneys also report being turned away and denied entry when attempting to meet with their clients in person.
As a result, detainees and their counsel are left directionless and unable to file documents necessary to contest their detention.
The ACLU claims these restrictions violate the First and Fifth Amendment rights of detainees and their legal representatives. The Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal government from depriving someone of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
“Here we are talking about the deprivation — or the taking, if you will — of liberty. And you cannot demonize an entire population,” Gomez said. “And these aren’t, if you look at the reports, detaining just people with serious criminal histories. They are detaining others, too.”
Noem celebrated the arrests by ICE in Florida in a July 12 press conference in Tampa.
“We focus on making sure we’re not only securing our border each and every day, knowing who’s coming into this country and who should not be,” Noem said. “But also, the illegal criminal aliens that we have on our streets. Getting them out and getting them out before they perpetuate more crimes and create more victims out of our families that live in our communities.”
In the lawsuit, clients represented by the legal services organizations, including the four detained plaintiffs, have no criminal history. Data from TRAC Immigration shows that as of July 13, 2025, 71.5% of current detainees held in ICE detention have no criminal conviction.
With more than 30 years of practice, Gomez said he has never seen anything like this.
“They have created the theatrics of an unnecessary emergency. And there are ways of handling immigration problems without doing this to people,” Gomez said. “This is not the way of the United States.”
This story is part of a collaboration between Miami’s Community Newspapers and the Lee Caplin School of Journalism & Media at Florida International University.
