Judge orders Florida, federal officials to produce 'Alligator Alcatraz' agreements

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Federal and state officials in Florida must produce agreements showing which government agency or private contractor has legal authority to detain people or perform immigration officer roles at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the immigration detention facility in the Everglades, a federal judge said Monday.

Officials must provide by Thursday all written agreements and contracts showing who has legal custody of the hundreds of detainees at the facility that was hastily constructed more than a month ago on an isolated airstrip in South Florida’s Everglades wilderness, said U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz, an appointee of President Donald Trump.

Ruiz’s order was part of an ongoing civil rights lawsuit against the state and federal governments by immigration attorneys who say “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated since they are barred from meeting lawyers, are being held without any charges, and a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings.

Who has authority over the detention center has been a murky issue since it opened at the beginning of July.

-snip-

By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Updated 5:30 PM EDT, August 4, 2025


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/florida-immigration-alligator-alcatraz-27fbae217427be730f589323df7cf656

[SunSeeker]

1. We need the names and contracts so we know who to sue.

The feds are trying to make it murky to avoid accountability.

[DBoon]

2. They are in effect wearing masks to obscure their identity and avoid accountability

Just like the thugs who detained these people in the first place

[cliffside]

3. Judges Openly Doubt Government as Justice Dept. Misleads and Dodges Orders

Full article

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/us/politics/trump-justice-department-judges-courts.html?unlocked_article_code=1.b08.QOye.-4wXZqynme0w&smid=url-share

The dissolution of these traditional bonds of trust — known in legal circles as the presumption of regularity — goes well beyond judges’ use of blunt words — “egregious,” “brazen,” “lawless” — to describe the various parts of Mr. Trump’s power-grabbing policy agenda.

Ultimately, legal experts say, the actions that caused such doubts among judges about the department and those who represent it could have a more systemic effect and erode the healthy functioning of the courts.

... That situation underscored how the courts can work successfully only if people outside of government — jurors and witnesses, for instance — believe that the Justice Department is acting honestly, said Daniel C. Richman, a law professor at Columbia who recently wrote in The New York Times about the “credibility crisis” the department is facing.

“When the government loses credibility, you see it clearly in the reactions of other players in the legal system,” Mr. Richman said. “That’s the road we’re on for now — unless something changes soon.”

[twodogsbarking]

4. Concentration camps. Not like Hogan's Heroes.