Trump’s Everglades’ migrant detention center faces two important lawsuits

The Trump administration migrants’ detention center in the Everglades has been the subject of two prosecution, which threatens to derail the operations of the establishment, the government employs new tactics to suppress the application of immigration.

The new installation, nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz, faces allegations that its hundreds of detainees are unable to communicate properly with lawyers, did not have access to an immigration court until recently and lived in inhuman conditions.

A second trial alleys that the makeshift detention center, made up of tents and trailers and surrounded by wetlands and wild animals, is also in the course of construction illegally in a sensitive habitat for threatened species.

Trump says that the only release of the “Alligator Alcatraz” is expulsion

President Donald Trump, Governor Ron Desantis and internal security secretary Kristi Noem walk in a medical institutions section while visiting a migrant detention center, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz”, located on the site of the Dade-Collier training and transition airport in Ochopee, Florida, July 1, 2025. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)

The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the first complaint on behalf of several detained migrants, saw a small setback on Monday evening when judge Rodolfo Ruiz said that his allegations should have been carried in the intermediate district of Florida rather than in the South District.

Ruiz, a person appointed by Trump, said that the case should be transferred to this district, noting that alleged violations had taken place in the establishment, which is located in the County Collier, about 80 kilometers from Miami.

ACLU, as well as other groups, argued in their trials that some detainees did not have the opportunity to communicate confidentially with a lawyer and that until recently, the Trump administration had not appointed any immigration court as having jurisdiction over the detained migrants, of which there were around 700.

Self-partition or finish in “ Alligator Alcatraz ‘, warns Noem the migrants during the visit of Trump

The entrance to the Immigration Center managed by the State nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz, located at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Florida Everglades on August 03, 2025 in Ochopee, Florida. (Joe Raedle / Getty Image)

“This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are detained beyond, without capacity to access the courts, under the legal authority which has never been explained and may not exist,” the lawyers of the complainants wrote.

Although not part of their legal allegations, lawyers said their customers were detained in “difficult and inhuman conditions” which included one meal a day, no access to daily showers, excessive force by guards and a lack of medical care. They are “maintained 24 hours a day in a cage inside a tent,” said lawyers.

The Ministry of Internal Security, which works in coordination with the state of Florida to build the Alligator Alcatraz, Disputed complaints by prisoners of bad conditions.

The demonstrators meet to demand the closure of the owling center for known immigrants under the name of “Alligator Alcatraz” at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, July 22, 2025. (Chandan Khanna / AFP via Getty Images)

“Here are the facts: Alligator Alcatraz meets federal detention standards,” said DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. “All the facilities of the detainees are clean. All the allegations of inhuman conditions are false. When will the media cease to peddle hoaxes on the detention centers of illegal extraterrestrials and will begin to focus on American victims of illegal extraterrestrial crime?”

Governor Ron Desantis, a Republican, said the installation was designed to be temporary and a way to relieve the burden of other detention centers. Desantis said he hoped that Alligator Alcatraz, who was built at an airport, will be a “strength multiplier” for Trump’s aggressive expulsion program.

Click here to obtain the Fox News app

In a separate case, judge Kathleen Williams, appointed by Obama, examines whether the Alligator Alcatraz should be interrupted for violating the national law on environmental policy.

Williams has placed a 14 -day take on the entire construction of the installation, but this prescription should expire on August 21. The judge promised to issue another ordinance on this date, affirming that the temporary damage to the government caused by the manufacture of construction was not as important as the damage which would be caused if it found a lack of compliance with environmental laws and regulations.