Ex-Detainees Testify They Were Impeded From Lawyering Up

Two former detainees at an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades testified Wednesday that they were hampered in seeking legal advice and had to write down attorneys' phone numbers on walls and beds using soap because they had no access to pen and paper. The men testified via video in a federal court in Fort Myers that their monitored calls to people outside the so-called Alligator Alcatraz—set up to support President Trump's deportation campaign—would be dropped whenever they talked about seeking legal advice or trying to get an attorney, the AP reports.

Impeding access to attorneys violates constitutional rights, the men—one of whom was deported to Colombia and the other to Haiti—contend, per WPTV. During a two-day hearing that started Wednesday, civil rights lawyers representing the detainees are seeking a temporary injunction from US District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell that would ensure that detainees at the Everglades facility get the same access to their attorneys as they do at federally run detention centers. The detention center was built last summer at a remote airstrip by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration.

The former detainee from Haiti said he was asked to sign documents he didn't understand, which turned out to be papers to self-deport to Haiti; he feared returning there and had asked for asylum in the US. He then was given a second set of papers and told they would get him self-deported to Mexico, which he signed because of his fear of going to Haiti. In the end, he was sent back to Haiti, he said. The suit says attorneys have to make an appointment to visit three days in advance, unlike at immigration detention facilities where lawyers can just show up during visiting hours; that detainees often are transferred to other facilities after their attorneys had made an appointment; and that scheduling delays have been so lengthy that detainees were unable to meet with attorneys before key deadlines.

State officials who are defendants in the lawsuit denied restricting the detainees' access to their attorneys and said any protocols were in place for security reasons and to make sure there was sufficient staffing, per the AP. Federal officials who are defendants said that no First Amendment rights were violated. The ICE detainee population, which excludes "Alligator Alcatraz" and other state-run facilities, has roughly doubled to about 70,000 since Trump took office a year ago.