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Judge weighing whether to order changes at 'Alligator Alcatraz' over attorney access concerns

WPTV's Jamie Ostroff is learning a federal judge is considering an injunction after testimony revealed confusion over whether detainees can privately contact their attorneys

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By: Jamie Ostroff

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A federal judge is weighing whether to order changes at "Alligator Alcatraz," the state-run immigration detention facility in the Everglades, as part of an ongoing civil rights lawsuit against the state and federal governments.

The lawsuit — brought by detainees and their immigration attorneys — argues their civil rights are being violated because they cannot communicate with each other in a timely and confidential manner.

Lawyers for the state and federal government say communication has improved since the facility opened in July. But a federal judge now needs to sort out exactly what the policies are at "Alligator Alcatraz" — and whether they are actually being followed.

When the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in July over attorney-client access at Alligator Alcatraz, immigration attorneys said the only way they could speak to their clients inside the facility was if the client called them from a monitored phone line in front of guards and other detainees.

"And it's like, how am I supposed to advocate? How am I supposed to do my job effectively?" Immigration Attorney Maribel Piza told WPTV last summer.

Since then, attorneys said things have changed. Immigration attorneys can now arrange Zoom meetings with their clients in "Alligator Alcatraz," or set up appointments to visit them in person. Those arrangements are made by emailing legal@privacy6.com — an address monitored by a private contractor.

"Yes. It has improved. It has improved," Immigration Attorney Nicolas Aguado said in October. "The problem is, is that enough?"

Andrea Jacoski, the acting director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law, has had multiple clients detained at Alligator Alcatraz. She described a pattern of ongoing obstacles.

"I would say there's a combination of access to counsel issues," Jacoski told WPTV in early February. "There's attorneys be able to visit with their clients, an inconsistent application of what the rules are. There are barriers to people inside actually accessing their attorneys themselves."

I spoke with Jacoski days after a late-January hearing related to the federal lawsuit. Alligator Alcatraz officials testified during the Fort Myers hearing that detainees had the ability to ask a guard for a cell phone to make a private legal call.

"I haven't heard about that," Jacoski said of the revelation.

During their testimony, the officials said that as of November, detainees can request a confidential phone call with their attorneys — and that attorneys can visit their clients in person without setting up an appointment in advance.

Days after speaking with WPTV, Jacoski she put the new visitation policy to the test and filed her results with the court. She emailed legal@privacy6.com requesting to visit a client without an appointment. She received instructions to schedule a visit. Emails show Jacoski tried to clarify whether an appointment was required.

She was ultimately told:

"Please schedule your visit in advance so we can ensure the detainee is available for the visit without delay."

In a separate court filing, a different attorney wrote that her client asked in February to call her from one of the cell phones, but "the officers didn't let him."

The state and federal governments argue those two pieces of evidence prove nothing and should not be allowed into evidence.

Frank Lumm, incident commander for Florida's disaster response team overseeing operations at Alligator Alcatraz, testified during the January hearing that the new policies had not been communicated in writing to detainees, and that the facility's official written policy "just hasn't been updated yet."

The detainees and their attorneys asked the judge to step in with an injunction more than a month ago. There is still no timeline on a decision — or a clear picture of what exactly the judge may or may not ask the detention facility to do.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

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