Judge orders Alligator Alcatraz detainees be given more access to their lawyers

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Miami Herald

March 27, 2026 8:51 PM


A federal judge issued a ruling Friday requiring the DeSantis administration and federal immigration officials to expand access for detainees to their lawyers at the Everglades detention facility, Alligator Alcatraz.

U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell issued a 68-page ruling that partially granted a preliminary injunction request, allowing lawyers to visit their clients during visitation hours without a pre-scheduled appointment, increasing the number of phones available to each detainee and requiring the state to publish protocols for lawyer and detainee visits. The ruling also made the ongoing lawsuit against the DeSantis administration’s pop-up immigration detention facility a class action.

Chappell, however, sided with the state on the issue of unscheduled visits by immigration attorneys to the tent site. The civil rights lawyers representing the detainees in the lawsuit had argued that attorneys could not simply show up unannounced during visitation hours at the facility, a policy available at other immigration detention centers. The state provided evidence to the court at the last minute showing that it had changed its policy and lawyers did not need to preschedule an appointment — a move that Chappell said “blindsided Plaintiffs and the Court.”

Chappell, who was appointed to the bench in 2013 by President Barack Obama, questioned the timing of the evidence and testimony provided by government officials. She, however, agreed it was sufficient and ruled that the plaintiffs could not demonstrate a violation of First Amendment rights based on scheduling in-person visits.

Read more: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article315214162.html

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Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://ecf.flmd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2025-00747-243-2-cv

(Sidenote - Mullen literally just got sworn in 4 days ago and his name was already substituted on the order )

[Scrivener7]

1. On the good news front, my family friend who has been living in one of the concentration camps since mid February

has been transported, and he's landed at the country his parents brought him from when he was a toddler. Though he doesn't know them, he does have relations there. He's currently with an aunt and cleaning up - he hasn't been able to change his clothes since he was picked up - and will go from there to the town where most of his relations live.

He is safe.

This is a huge relief. There was talk of taking him to one of the third countries like South Sudan or Syria. What do people do when they are sent there? I can't imagine.