A 38-page complaint spells out how people detained at the state-run Everglades detention center are reportedly not getting access to their attorneys.
One of the plaintiffs, Michael Borrego, says he remains at the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” and has not been able to see his immigration attorney.
“They’re violating his human rights,” Yaneisy Fernandez Silva, Borrego’s mother, told Telemundo 51. “His attorney waited three hours outside and could not get in [to the detention center].”
According to the lawsuit, the first formally address these complaints, Borrego is a Cuban national who lived in South Florida with his family prior to his arrest on June 10. He was arrested for a parole violation for outstanding traffic violations. NBC6 also found Borrego was charged with grand theft in the past.
Borrego has been detained at the Alligator Alcatraz facility since July 5, 2025, the lawsuit said. It argues “Borrego has a final order of removal and requires assistance of counsel with submitting credible fear requests in immigration court.”
“Defendants in this case have blocked detainees held at the facility from access to legal counsel. No protocols exist at this facility for providing standard means of confidential attorney-client communication, such as in-person attorney visitation and phone or video calls that are available at any other detention facility, jail, or prison,” the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday, explained.
The initial complaint goes on to explain, “the only way that detained people can communicate with the outside world is via infrequent access to collect pay phone calls that are monitored and recorded, and last approximately five minutes.”
As NBC6 has reported multiple times, families of those in the custody of the state in what has been nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz” are not easy to locate. When in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency provides an online locator where detainees can be tracked. That’s not the case at the Everglades detention facility.
“This facility opens another dark chapter in our nation’s history. Its very existence is predicated on our country’s basest impulses and shows the danger of unchecked governmental authority when combined with unbridled hate. It represents an attack on common decency, and in this case, its treatment of detained people is also unlawful,” said Eunice Cho, senior counsel with ACLU and lead attorney in the case.“The U.S. Constitution does not allow the government to simply lock people away without any ability to communicate with counsel or to petition the court for release from custody. The government may not trample on these most fundamental protections for people held in its custody.”
Borrego, according to the lawsuit, was taken back to the detention facility after undergoing a surgical procedure at a local hospital. His mother confirms he was treated at Kendall HCA Florida.
The lawsuit alleges his family reported to attorneys on July 15 that the facility staff were not providing him the post-surgical antibiotics the hospital had prescribed for him, and that due to the heat and humidity in the tents, he had pus coming out of his operation site. He is experiencing significant post-surgery pain.
NBC6 reached out to the Florida Division of Emergency Management for comment and are waiting for a response.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
