Attorneys make oral arguments on Alligator Alcatraz lawsuit over access to attorneys

FORT MYERS, Fla. —

Witness testimony and oral arguments wrapped up today as a part of a federal lawsuit filed against the State of Florida and the federal government over access to attorneys inside Alligator Alcatraz.

An employee with the State Emergency Response Team revealed 1,500 detainees are inside the facility as of Thursday.

Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said detainees do not have easy, timely access to confidential calls with legal counsel. Witnesses testifying on behalf of the State of Florida admitted that detainees were not able to make confidential calls prior to November.

"People who are held in the immigration detention facility, they can't make phone calls that are confidential to their attorneys to be able to talk to them about the most basic things in their cases," Eunice Cho, an attorney with the ACLU, told Gulf Coast News. "It is very difficult for people who are held in detention to be able to even understand how to do that because the government's not even putting up signs or any other information to the public, how attorneys and people in detention can talk to each other."

This two-day hearing follows a lawsuit filed last July by the ACLU and Americans for Immigrant Justice regarding the conditions of the facility. In September, a federal judge required the civil rights group to narrow the scope of their case to only focus on detainees' access to legal counsel, excluding arguments regarding living conditions such as temperature, hygiene, medication, and weather, which were in the first complaint.

On Thursday, the State of Florida's legal team brought two witnesses to the stand. Frankie Lumm, an incident commander for the State Emergency Response Team, testified that staff at Alligator Alcatraz have been allowing detainees access to facility cell phones for confidential legal calls since before Thanksgiving. Lumm also said attorneys have since been allowed to show up at the facility without an appointment to meet with detainees.

Lumm said the new protocol has not been written in policy yet. The staffer with Florida's SERT also testified that posters inside the facility do not instruct detainees on how they can make a confidential call. Lumm said detainees are made aware of how they can make private calls to legal counsel during intake at the facility.

However, testimony from two detainees Wednesday refutes the claim detainees could make private calls. Both said they were not able to reach attorneys inside the facility. After getting phone numbers for legal counsel from family, they testified they had no pen and paper, forcing them to write down contacts with soap on bed headboards and walls inside Alligator Alcatraz.

On Thursday, Lumm testified that the facility was not originally intended to host legal visits. He said the state opened the facility with the intention of making it a "deportation depot," where detainees would be deported within 72 hours of arrival after court proceedings. Since the opening, Lumm said the facility has now been a place where people are being held long-term, prompting them to change protocol.

Cho, an attorney representing the ACLU in this case, told Gulf Coast News there's no evidence that practice inside the facility has changed at all since its opening.

"Certainly, it seems that detainees themselves, attorneys themselves, have no idea about these policies," Cho said. "If no one knows about them, do they actually really exist?"

During Lumm's testimony, the state defense team showed photos of what Lumm called the legal library on site. The photos depicted a tent divided into four rooms. Three rooms had computers, headphones and a TTY phone for detainees with hearing issues. Lumm said those three spaces were used by detainees for legal research and to meet with their attorneys. The fourth room showed in photos, had four Zoom booths for virtual calls with legal counsel. Lumm said detainees had access to pen and paper inside the law.

After witness testimony, attorneys with the ACLU presented their oral argument, stating the state and federal government violated First Amendment rights by not allowing timely access to legal counsel.

Attorneys for the state and federal government said the new practices in the facility do allow for detainees to make confidential calls and meet with attorneys without an appointment. They discredited the testimony of the two detainees, noting that they believe their witnesses were more credible.

It's now up to federal judge Sheri Polster Chappell to decide if she will grant a preliminary injunction to get detainees the same access to legal counsel as is given to detainees at federally-run detention centers. The ACLU and Americans for Immigrant Justice have also asked the court for a class certification to ensure everyone at the facility will be afforded the protection, if granted.

Gulf Coast News asked lawyers for the State of Florida and the federal government for comment. Both referred Gulf Coast News to spokespeople at the Governor's Office and the Department of Justice.

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