The day after a federal judge temporarily blocked an order to wind down operations at Alligator Alcatraz earlier this month, Florida opened its second state-run immigration detention center, dubbed "Deportation Depot." Although the Sunshine State's second facility isn't likely to run into the same environmental legal challenges that Alligator Alcatraz has, it may face the same questions regarding facility management and constitutional rights violations.
Since July 2010, federal immigration detainees in custody for more than 48 hours have been put into the Online Detainee Locator System, or the ODLS database, which family members, legal representatives, and members of the public have used to ascertain the detainees' whereabouts. However, the system was designed to track detainees held by either Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection, the agencies that have historically detained undocumented immigrants. But the unprecedented development of state-run immigration detention centers such as Deportation Depot and Alligator Alcatraz has led to detainees at these locations frequently not showing up in the ODLS.
As of September 10, Deportation Depot, located at the previously closed Baker Correctional Institution in Sanderson, Florida, housed 248 immigrant detainees, according to USA Today. However, none of these detainees were listed in the ODLS. Similarly, at the end of August—weeks after opening—approximately 800 of over 1,800 Alligator Alcatraz detainees were not listed in ODLS, and an additional 450 were found listed, but were given no location with instructions to "Call ICE for details."
