COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. — The number of detainees at the Florida immigration detention facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz” is dropping.
That’s according to Local 10 News’ sources and a growing number of detainees inside the facility who are calling WPLG and claiming they’re seeing operations shutting down.
“There’s less detainees, there’s less detainees now,” one detainee told Local 10 News over the phone. “And there are less officers too as well.”
U.S. Congressman Maxwell Frost from Central Florida said the number of detainees is dropping drastically.
“They have 655 people there as of yesterday,” said Frost. “They spent nearly a billion of tax payer dollars. There needs to be accountability and consequences.”
While many of the immigrants are being processed for deportation or transferred to other facilities across the country, Local 10 is learning a growing number of them are being released or bonding out to their families.
Sammy Aliferis has served as immigration judge and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement attorney, but now he is serving as a lawyer, representing detainees inside “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Aliferus said detainees are being let out under a legal order called habeas corpus.
“It’s supposed to be to effectuate the removal, not to have them there indefinitely,” he said.
This is all coming after an immigration judge recently stated that, “If removal is not reasonably foreseeable, the court should hold continued detention unreasonable and no longer authorized by statute.”
Aliferis says detainees are also being granted bond following a recent decision in Florida’s 11th circuit court.
Local 10 News reached out to the Florida Department of Emergency Management, which runs the facility, to ask for comment on our reporting, or to confirm if they are shutting down.
They had not replied as of the time of this story’s publication.
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