BLACK HOLE: The Silent Disappearance of Detained Immigrants at Alligator Alcatraz

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Hundreds of people detained at the Alligator Alcatraz immigration processing center west of Miami, Florida, appear to have vanished. They have disappeared from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) online database, and their lawyers and families have been unable to locate them, according to immigrant advocacy groups.

“When searching for people detained there, the ICE locator now says, ‘Call the Florida Department of Corrections for details,’” says Luis Sorto of Sanctuary of the South, a network that offers legal services and participated in a lawsuit against the government over restrictions on access to lawyers for detainees at the infamous immigration jail.

All of the plaintiffs who were being held at the center were transferred to another location after a new lawsuit was filed in August challenging Florida’s authority to detain people there, Sorto added. That lawsuit also noted that the detainees did not appear in ICE’s tracking system.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed the lawsuit, described Alligator Alcatraz as a “black hole,” noting that some people were “missing,” effectively “off the radar” of the immigration system, and “their lawyers and families often don’t know where they are or how to contact them.”

Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said that ICE’s “persistent refusal” to promptly update detainee locations “is a significant obstacle to effective attorney-client communication, undermines due process, and is yet another hallmark of the detention system’s cruelty.”

A Miami Herald report indicates that about 800 detainees no longer appeared in ICE’s online database as of late August, and another 450 did not have a location, but rather the message: “Call ICE for details.”

A judge ruled in August that the state must dismantle the camp following a lawsuit filed by environmental groups and a local Native American tribe, but an appeals court halted the ruling and allowed the center to continue operating while the litigation continues.

Following the ruling, however, a state official said that the facility would be empty within a few days, and authorities indicated they were transferring detainees to other facilities, including some in Florida flagged by human rights organizations for poor conditions, and others outside the state. Reports indicate that the number of people detained there has decreased significantly.

However, it is unclear how many people have been deported from the site or transferred to other immigration detention centers. Some detainees told the Miami Herald that authorities are pressing them to voluntarily agree to deportation, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in late July that about 100 had been deported from the site.

Alex Solomiany, a Miami immigration attorney, told the Miami Herald that he went to see one of his clients in immigration court at the Krome detention center southwest of Miami, where he learned he had been accidentally deported to Guatemala. Solomiany told on Wednesday that his client remains in Guatemala and is “working with ICE” to obtain parole that would allow him to return to the United States.