'If You Can Keep It': "Alligator Alcatraz" And Due Process

0:09This is sad. Sad. Hopeless. It's a type of torture.

0:28That was Juan Palma Martinez and Gonzalo Almanza Valdez talking to CNN about being held at what Florida state official dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. President Trump and his administration have also adopted that term. The center was constructed in only eight days within a training airport in the Florida Everglades. After three weeks of its opening, around 100 people have already been deported straight from the center. It's a detention center. It's not the Four Seasons. It's not the Ritz-Carlton. These are criminal aliens who have been caught by DHS ICE and are sent there for on final deportation orders.

1:10That was Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Angolia speaking to Live Now from Fox last month. Civil rights groups and attorneys are suing the Trump administration over due process complaints, and lawyers allege detainees are being held without charges and blocked from legal counsel. So for today's installment of If You Can Keep It, we look at the legal rights of those held in immigration detention centers. What's really happening inside the controversial and hastily constructed facility in Florida? I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A Podcast. We get to all of it after the break. Stay with us.

1:50Let's turn to our panel for today's conversation. Elliott Williams joins us. He's CNN's legal analyst and a former federal prosecutor. He was also assistant director at Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Obama administration. Elliott, welcome back. Hey, Jen. Also with us is Eunice Cho, Senior Counsel with the ACLU's National Prison Project. She's also the lead counsel in ACLU's lawsuit on behalf of immigrants detained at the center. Eunice, welcome. Hello. Thanks for having me. And we did reach out to ICE along with Florida's Division of Emergency Management to join the conversation today.

2:24They did not respond. And some of you are already sharing your thoughts. Here's Spencer in Ohio. I don't like the way the media sensationalizes the detention center by calling it Alligator Alcatraz. Even though they're mirroring language used by Trump and other folks, I think it's a misguiding of what's going on to use that kind of sensational language, and I think it's cruel. So, Elliot, let's just address the name right at the top. Alligator Alcatraz is now the official name of the facility. That's according to confirmation received from the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times. The Trump administration and the Florida Republican Party have leaned into this name.

3:09The Republican Party of Florida is even selling merchandise branded as such. What can you tell us about how this name came to be? Oh, absolutely. So it began as the Miami-Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport, in effect, an airstrip in the middle of the Everglades that really wasn't getting a ton of use, and it was converted into this immigration facility. But to your point, Jen, the Trump administration, or pardon me, the state of Florida did rename it officially Alligator Alcatraz and began selling merch and so on after the notorious former federal prison Alcatraz Island out in the San Francisco Bay.

3:47Now, you know, I will note the administration also wants to repurpose Alcatraz Island as a prison, as a federal prison, for the purpose of incarcerating people. Now, it's because of the associations that the public has with the term that the administration has leaned into it. And so it's not an accident that it has that name. You know, it's a fair question from the caller that why would the media lean into it? That's what they named it. It's the official name, and that explains it. Well, and really briefly, Elliot, what are the differences between an immigration detention center and a prison? Yeah, formally, and this is very important to denote the formal distinction, but the technical distinction is that prisons are for punishing people when they commit crimes.

4:38It is for taking away someone's liberty as a means of punishment. Punitive, right. Again, philosophically, that's what it's for. Detention center in the immigration context technically is for simply holding someone to effectuate their removal from the United States. Now, again, this whole concept has gotten muddied and certainly spectacularly so in the last several months where the administration has leaned into rhetoric suggesting that the whole point of the immigration detention process is to, number one, deter people from coming to the United States in the first place, and also, number two, to punish them for being in the United States.

5:19They sort of use that kind of language. But in formal terms, the purpose of immigration detention is simply to effectuate someone's removal from the United States. Well, President Trump toured the Florida facility July 1st before detainees arrived, and here's what he had to say. Very soon, this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet. was surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland, and the only way out is really deportation. The Miami Herald found that out of a list of 700 people who are being detained at the center, at least 250 do not have a criminal conviction or criminal charge.

5:58Eunice, the president emphasized there that immigrants with criminal backgrounds would be targeted during this background, but individuals are in civil immigration custody. Explain the distinction. Well, you know, there's an important distinction between civil and criminal detention. And I think Elliot really underscored this, is that people who are in immigration detention are in civil proceedings. They're not being punished for their crimes. And even if people have criminal histories, they're being held in detention if they are in a typical immigration detention facility while the immigration courts are adjudicating their cases or they're waiting for removal.

6:40And what we're seeing here at this particular facility is that it is not the case. Indeed, many of the plaintiffs in our particular case have no criminal history whatsoever. They were picked up in very ordinary circumstances. One of our plaintiffs, for example, was leaving church on a Sunday and he was picked up by plainclothes officer. Again, a man who's lived in Florida for 20 years, has had the same job for decades, has leaving church and was picked up and then taken into custody and taken to Alligator Alcatraz. Another one of our plaintiffs was actually, several of our plaintiffs have pending asylum cases and are already in immigration proceedings.

7:21They have no criminal histories. They have US citizen families and are being picked up on their way to work. One man was picked up while he was fishing and was pulled over and asked if he had a fishing license and then taken into immigration custody. These types of cases just really underscore what is happening. It is not as matching up to the rhetoric that the Trump administration is using to describe people in the facilities. And for some reason, the government has continually said that everyone in the facility has criminal records. That is absolutely not the case. And I think it's very clear that there is very little rhyme or reason for why people are being detained.

8:04Well, this brings up your lawsuit against the Trump administration for due process complaints at this center. Part of that due process is being able to meet with attorneys. So if you have a pending asylum case, you need to talk to your attorney to figure out where you are in that process to figure out next steps. But what are we seeing happening in Florida? Well, I think you're absolutely right. You know, one expectation that we all have is that if you are in government custody, that you'll be able to speak with your lawyer. What we saw with respect to Alligator Alcatraz was entirely the opposite.

8:36We had attorneys trying to meet with their clients, driving to the facility, being met at an armed checkpoint, being turned away from the facility, sometimes being given a form or an email address that they could contact to try to reach their clients. And when they emailed that address, their emails would bounce back or they would not get any response. response, you know, this was really, you know, the case for several of the attorneys and the attorneys who have also sued as part of our lawsuit. And I have to underscore how unusual this is. Every single detention facility, jail, or prison allows for in-person visitation in the country.

9:17It also, you know, the Constitution also requires and legal ethics require that you're supposed to have private attorney-client conversations that are confidential, that are not monitored. This is a bedrock principle. And of course, that is also not happening. Well, let me bring you in here, Elliot, because I think sometimes there's a belief that there is a separate or a different set of rights for non-citizens when it comes to due process. Just really quickly run us through what rights non-citizens have if they are being detained. And forgive me for being the lawyer at the garden party, but the answer, as in so many areas, is it depends.

9:57And to Eunice's point, once someone has an attorney, they have a right to have confidential conversations with that attorney or meet with them in private or whatever else. The problem is that the fact that you have a right to an attorney isn't the same as the constitutional guarantee to an attorney that you would have in a criminal context. So the Constitution doesn't guarantee things. But again, Once the government allows you to talk to an attorney, you ought to be able to meet with that attorney privately. Or you have the right to remain silent if an immigration officer is questioning you. So you have the same rights that anyone would enjoy in the United States, but they get modified a bit in the immigration context.

10:37How quickly is a determination made about their status? Are there any rules that limit how long they can be held in these centers? Oh, no. Oh, and this is one of the great challenges of our system, and it's frankly one of the few things that everybody in America can agree on right and left, which is that the system is horribly inefficient and doesn't work well. Eunice may have different statistics on this, but the last that I saw was that at the end of fiscal year 2024, there were about 3.6 million pending, million with an M pending immigration cases for the immigration judges around the country.

11:12That is a wait time of years, not months, that someone might be in immigration detention. So there's no guarantee that one's process will happen quickly. Kind of, and here's another difference from our criminal system, where the Constitution guarantees you the right to a speedy trial. Such a protection simply does not exist in the immigration system, and it's allowed this system to fester for decades at this point now that there are literally millions of cases pending. So someone might show up and not get a hearing date for years and years and years in the future. We have to take a quick break, but coming up, we hear from an attorney representing seven people being held at the new detention facility in Florida.

11:53That's after this.

11:59Let's get back to the conversation and turn to Magdalena Cupriz. She's the founder of Cupriz and Associates and represents seven detainees at the center. Magdalena, welcome. Thank you for having me. Magdalena, one of your clients was one of the first to arrive at the Florida Detention Center. He was picked up by Florida Highway Patrol, which reported him to Customs and Border Protection. He's been in the U.S. for two decades, has no criminal charges. Explain his story. Yes, so I have several clients in that situation. I have one currently who's detained at Alligator Alcatraz, who is a citizen of Guatemala, and he's been in the United States for over 20 years.

12:40He was picked up by a wildlife officer while he was fishing with his family. And allegedly he was detained by the wildlife officer because he looked Hispanic. He's currently still in detention there. He does not have a criminal record. He's an asylum applicant and the sole provider for his family. I think that our office has been facing the same situation with him that some of Eunice's clients have been in that we prepared and filed a motion for bond. And we are being told by ICE that ICE doesn't have jurisdiction over him as they don't have jurisdiction over the other detainees detained there because they're allegedly in state custody.

13:31But obviously they have not been charged with any crimes. Therefore, there is no state judge that can hear their bond hearing either. How have you communicated with your clients who are being held at the facility? How often are you able to contact them, learn about the conditions they're being kept in? How has it worked for you so far? So several of my clients were there or have been there since June 25th, which I believe, or actually they were detained on June 25th, but taken in on the first bus to Alligator Alcatraz, which I believe was July 1st or 2nd. We have had very difficult time reaching them and contacting them until about a week ago where we started being allowed to have Zoom visitation with them.

14:23Initially, again, it was the same situation. We were requesting access to the clients and we were being told by ICE that it's state custody to figure out who in the state could grant us access. We went in person to try and visit them in person. And the warden there said that they had no idea how to accommodate an attorney visit. And I think kind of as a joke told us to come back the next day. But we took it as an offensive joke, in essence, because they said, come back the next day and maybe you'll have better luck, which obviously we didn't think was funny. Now, you mentioned that you're able to have Zoom visitation now with your clients.

15:01Is it clear to you that those meetings are happening confidentially, that you have the kind of space to protect attorney-client privilege that you're accustomed to having with your clients? It's not clear to me. So right now, the visits are being arranged via Zoom. The detainees I brought in handcuffs and shackles to attorney visits, which is not normal. Because, like I said, we represent individuals that are detained all over the country. And these Zoom attorney meetings generally are in a private room. they're not being recorded or we're being told that they're not being recorded. And the detainees are able to come in.

15:52They're able to show us documents, move their hands, show us papers and whatnot. And in this situation, they're not able to do that because we see them on the phone, on the Zoom, with headphones and handcuffs. And the back, what's behind them is blurred. So other than seeing a fence, we don't really know if they're in a common room with other detainees, if there's guards watching them. We really don't know. You say you have a fear these people will be deported without due process. What's causing you to fear that's the case? What the prior speaker just said. I mean, a lot of these people have cases in progress and they, you know, they don't have final deportation orders and they're being picked up for minor violations like, you know, fishing while Hispanic or having a tinted window or driving a construction truck that in Florida mostly Hispanics drive.

17:02and we're trying to get them before judges so that somebody can hear their case and evaluate the case, whether or not they have a right to a bond, whether or not they're eligible for a form of relief or to stay in the United States. And we're hitting this black wall where immigration is saying talk to the state and there's no one in the state to talk to. We did receive an email address where we can email for attorney visits and that's the one that we're using now. The attorney visits are being facilitated via Zoom, but again, they're complicated because they're asking us to email them a form signed by a detainee that we can't get access to to sign the form.

17:43So let me ask you this, Magdalena. If one of your clients is deported, at this point, do you have any way or does that person's family have any way of knowing where they're being sent, being able to track their progress through the system or any way of contacting them if they are deported from the country? Well, we're supposed to, as attorneys, we're supposed to be informed anytime our clients are moved between ICE facilities. That is not happening. And it's not happening at Alligator Alcatraz at all. I mean, we just had a client moved from there to Louisiana. And the only reason we found out was because, you know, they call their family.

18:31I have all my clients at the facility call me every day just so that I know that they're still there. And their instructions that we give them is if you get moved, you need to call us and tell us where you are because it's very right now. What's happening is they're moving people all over the country. They're moving them frequently. They're moving them sometimes the day before they're supposed to have a hearing just to delay the hearing, in my opinion. And, yeah, there's really no way to know. And if they're removed, I mean, we will find out when they call their family from wherever they're removed to.

19:05And it's very scary and it's not supposed to work that way. I mean, again, a lot of these people have hearings that are supposed to be coming up or have open cases or administratively closed cases, which are open cases in the process of being reopened. And many of them are waiting to see a judge. They should not under any circumstance be removed. That's Magdalena Capriz. She's the founder of Capriz and Associates. She's an attorney representing seven detainees at the Florida Detention Center that state officials named Alligator Alcatraz. Mike Delaney, thank you so much for speaking with us today.

19:41Thank you so much for having me. Now, Eunice, around 100 people have already been deported straight from the center to other countries, and that's possible because the facility was built around an airport. But what do we know about those people who were deported and if they were able to get due process? us? Well, you know, Governor DeSantis has heralded this number of people who have been placed on deportation flights from this facility. But, you know, we have a very strong concern that many of those folks were not actually able to, for example, speak with counsel before they were deported. There are some reports that people have been erroneously put on those flights.

20:16And detainees have reported that officers are circulating in the facility, compelling people to sign orders of deportation without, of course, an opportunity to speak with their counsel and perhaps giving up meritorious claims to remain in the United States with their families. This is a very serious situation. Deportation, of course, is a very difficult situation to reverse and can have profound implications for a family. And so this is why it is so important to make sure that people do receive, you know, all the proper protections by being able to speak to their counsel, being able to have due process before they're compelled.

20:53And I think I want to add that the situation, of course, is really desperate for a lot of people because they are in such dire conditions at the facility and they are being told that there's no immigration court that actually can adjudicate their claim. So it feels like they're in a legal limbo in many cases. So people are feeling desperate. They're being pressured to do this. And that raises all sorts of concerns with respect to what is happening at the facility. We got this question from Elaine who says, why are we sending people to a foreign prison rather than deporting them to their home country?

21:27Will people at detention centers eventually be sent home? Elliot, let's start with the first question first. What is the Trump administration's explanation for deporting people not to their country of origin, but to countries that they have no connection to at all? Yeah, the explanation is that the administration's obligation is to remove people from the country, not to send people home. Those are two sort of different things here. And they make the point that sort of, well, it's sort of on you to figure out your way to get back home. Now, that's obviously another means of deterring people from coming to the United States in the first place.

22:05But that is something that we've seen much more of over these last few months, doing so, but also being quite public about it. And to Elaine's second question, will people at detention centers eventually be sent home? Eunice, I want to come to you here because what we're hearing is that there's not a legal pathway open to people right now to challenge their detention. Or it's being made incredibly difficult for them to do so. So is there a possibility that someone can find a pathway to maybe putting a bond, being able to be released, and returning to their family while their cases are being adjudicated?

22:47Well, that is what we're hoping that the court in our case will do, is to identify which court does have jurisdiction to adjudicate the claims of people at Alligator Alcatraz. And I think one thing is very interesting about the situation. There have been people who have been held at Alligator Alcatraz and ICE then moves them to another local detention facility. They are then able to move forward with their cases, you know, with respect to immigration court. And I think that really highlights some more of the puzzling fiction that is happening with respect to this facility. If ICE is deciding to place people at the facility and transferring people out of the facility, it really boggles the mind as to why ICE doesn't have custody over people at the facility and or why the immigration courts have jurisdiction over people at the facility.

23:37It is a very puzzling situation and certainly one that is violating basic fundamental due process rights for people who are held at the facility. We have to take another short break, but still to come, a Florida state senator joins us to talk about what he saw after touring the facility.

23:57Let's take a second for another message from one of you. Hi, my name is Gabriel. I'm calling from Florida. Alligator Alcatraz for me is a sort of a concentration camp. My grandparents were in a concentration camp, and basically they didn't have any rights. So I completely agree to deport all the criminals, but people that are hardworking, they come here for a better life, to feed their family and to take care of their families. They're here because they escaped a bad political system where they lived. And now they are in a sort of concentration camp. Thanks for that message. Now let's bring in Democratic Florida State Senator Chevron Jones.

24:47Now, Senator, you toured the facility on July 12th, but you had trouble getting access at first. What happened? Well, I'll start off by saying that we initially visited the site on July 3rd. My colleagues and I visited because we were visiting under the guise of what the statute allowed for elected officials to visit facilities, state-run facilities, and we were denied entry. July 12th is when the second time we went with congressional members. And we saw what this is not just a detention facility. It's an absolute moral failure. I made it clear. It's also a legal overreach. And I think you've just heard that on your show just a few minutes ago.

25:28And it was a manufactured crisis that has been designed for what I will continue to call political theater. What Florida has built in Everglades is an absolute modern day internment camp where we saw men caged in tents, chained at the wrists and ankles, and being denied basic rights under disillusion of some type of order. And we weren't allowed to speak to them. We weren't shown where they eat. What we did see was calculated. It was cold. It was deeply disturbing. When we got to the facility, they shared with us that there were no new paved roads and there was no money spent on the roads. but what we saw was newly paid roles.

26:06And so what we see is this facility that did not and has not gone through the legislature. There's been no declared emergency, yet millions of taxpayer dollars have already been spent. And that's why my colleagues, not just Democrats, Republicans also are starting to question the dollars that are being spent on this facility. And they want to know how far is this going to go. And I am looking forward to when we get to committee weeks in October for that questioning to happen, because I believe that the governor's office have gone way too far. And then there's no clear understanding of who's running this facility, whether it's federally run or whether it's run by the state.