Guards at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ severely beat migrant detainees, lawyer claims

Guards severely beat and pepper-sprayed detained migrants at Alligator Alcatraz, an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, causing injuries to their heads, shoulders and wrists, according to a lawyer for two detainees.

Guards targeted several inmates at the state-run facility after they complained about lack of telephone access a day earlier this month, attorney Katherine Blankenship said in a court statement.

Telephones are the main way detainees communicate with family and legal representation while in detention at the detention center, but they did not work.

The guards first began taunting the inmates while they were in a cell. Blankenship said the guards then became “more aggressive and were yelling and threatening to go into the cage.”

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Trucks drive past the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades in Collier County, Florida. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

An inmate was punched in the face after approaching a guard. The guards then started beating other inmates in the cell.

Blankenship said one of his clients was punched in the right eye, thrown to the ground and beaten by several guards. She said the guards kicked him in the head and injured his shoulder and arm. A guard also placed his knee on the detainee’s neck while restraining him, according to the lawyer.

The statement includes a photo taken during a video call nearly a week after the beating, showing the inmate with a bruised eye.

“The officers beat several people during this incident and broke the wrist of another inmate,” Blankenship wrote, noting that the inmate whose wrist was broken is not one of his clients.

Telephone service was restored the next day, without officials providing an explanation as to the reasons for the interruption.

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The detention center was built last year by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to support President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. (Getty Images)

Blankenship’s statement was part of a court filing alleging that state and federal officials failed to comply with a federal judge’s preliminary injunction last month ordering the detention center to provide inmates with timely, free, confidential, unmonitored and unrecorded access to their attorneys.

U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell ordered authorities to provide at least one working telephone for every 25 people held at the facility.

The judge’s order followed a lawsuit that claimed facility officials were violating inmates’ First Amendment rights.

State officials have denied allegations that detainees restricted access to their attorneys, pointing to security and staffing concerns to justify any disruption. Federal officials, who are also defendants in the case, have denied that the inmates’ First Amendment rights were violated.

Last week, state officials filed a notice announcing their intention to appeal the judge’s decision.

The facility has been the subject of several lawsuits since its construction over the summer.

Workers install an “Alligator Alcatraz” sign in Collier County, Florida. (Getty Images)

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The detention center was built last year by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to support President Donald Trump’s plan for mass detention and deportation of migrants. Authorities in the Sunshine State 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, Democrat of Florida, said she had not had a chance to speak with the detainees.

The lawmaker also called conditions at the detention center “inhumane” and “cruel.”

“The way detainees are housed is cruel and unnecessary,” she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.