ORLANDO, FLORIDA– Guards severely beat and pepper-sprayed detainees at a state-run prison Immigration detention center Known as the “Alcatraz Alligator,” it was found in Florida’s Everglades this month, according to attorneys for two of those arrested.
Guards targeted Katherine Blankenship’s clients and other detainees at the facility after they complained that they could not be reached by phone on April 2, Blankenship said in a statement to the court.
The phones, which were not working, were the primary means of communication for detainees with their families and lawyers while in the detention center. Blankenship wrote that the guards began taunting the detainees who were in the cell, then became “more aggressive and were screaming and threatening to enter the cage.”
When one of the detainees approached a guard, he was punched in the face. The guards then started beating other detainees in the cell. One of Blankenship’s agents was punched in the right eye, thrown to the ground, and beaten by several guards. He was kicked in the head and injured his shoulder and arm. One of the guards put his knee on the detainee’s neck while he was being restrained, according to the lawyer’s statement, which included a photo taken during a video call about a week later showing the detainee with bruises in his eye.
“Officers struck several people during this incident and broke the wrist of another detainee,” Blankenship wrote. The detainee whose wrist was broken was not one of her clients.
Phone service was restored the next day with no explanation as to why it had been interrupted.
Florida Emergency Management did not respond to emailed questions Wednesday about the incident.
Blankenship’s announcement was included in a lawsuit accusing state and federal officials of failing to comply with the court’s decision A preliminary injunction from a federal judge Last month, detention center officials ordered access to timely, free, confidential, uncensored, and unrecorded legal outgoing calls. U.S. District Judge Sherri Polster Chappell in Fort Myers, Florida, also said facility officials must provide at least one operable phone for every 25 people detained at the facility.
The judge’s order came in response to a lawsuit alleging detainees’ First Amendment rights were violated.
State officials denied restricting detainees’ access to their lawyers, and cited security and personnel reasons behind any challenges. Federal officials, who are also defendants, denied violating detainees’ First Amendment rights.
the Everglades facility It was built last summer on a remote airstrip by the administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to support President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Florida also built a second immigration detention center in North Florida.
During a visit last week to the detention center, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, said she was not given the opportunity to speak with detainees. She described the conditions in the detention center as “inhumane.”
“The way detainees are being housed is cruel and unnecessary,” she said.
—
Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report.
___
Follow Mike Schneider on the Bluesky social media platform: @mikeysid.bsky.social.