Guards at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention facility severely beat and pepper-sprayed detainees on April 2 after they complained about non-functioning phones, according to a court declaration filed by attorney Katherine Blankenship on behalf of two detainees held at the remote Everglades site.
Blankenship said guards began taunting detainees who had raised concerns about inoperable phones — their primary means of reaching family and attorneys — before the confrontation turned physical. One of her clients was punched in the right eye, thrown to the floor, beaten by several guards, kicked in the head, and had a guard’s knee pressed to his neck while being restrained, she wrote.
The allegations surfaced in a court filing accusing state and federal officials of defying a federal judge’s preliminary injunction ordering the facility to provide detainees with confidential, unmonitored legal calls, drawing renewed scrutiny to the Everglades center Gov. Ron DeSantis built last summer to support President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign.
The incident
Guards in the cell block grew “more aggressive and were yelling and threatening to enter the cage” before the violence began, according to Blankenship’s declaration. When one detainee approached a guard, he was punched in the face. Guards then began beating others in the cell.
Blankenship wrote that a guard placed his knee on her client’s neck while restraining him, and that her client’s shoulder and arm were injured. Her declaration included a photograph taken during a video call nearly a week after the incident showing the detainee with a bruised eye.
“The officers beat several people during this incident and broke another detained individual’s wrist,” Blankenship wrote. The detainee whose wrist was broken is not among her clients.
Phone service at the facility was restored the following day without explanation, according to the declaration.
The Florida Department of Emergency Management did not respond to questions emailed about the incident.
Court order and lawsuit
Blankenship’s declaration was submitted as part of a court filing accusing state and federal officials of failing to comply with a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell in Fort Myers. Judge Chappell ordered detention center officials to provide access to timely, free, confidential, unmonitored and unrecorded outgoing legal calls. She also required the facility to maintain at least one operable telephone for every 25 people held.
The injunction came in response to a lawsuit claiming detainees’ First Amendment rights were being violated by restrictions on their ability to contact attorneys.
State officials denied restricting detainees’ access to their attorneys and cited security and staffing reasons for any challenges they acknowledged. Federal officials, also defendants in the suit, denied that detainees’ First Amendment rights were violated. State officials filed a notice last week that they plan to appeal Judge Chappell’s order.
Background and oversight
The Everglades facility, which detainees and critics have nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” was constructed last summer at a remote airstrip by the DeSantis administration. Florida has also built a second immigration detention center in north Florida.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, visited the detention center last week but said she was not given the opportunity to speak with any detainees.
“The way the detainees are housed is cruel and unnecessary,” Wasserman Schultz said. She described conditions at the facility as “inhumane.”