Guards at a state-run immigration detention facility in Florida’s Everglades, known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” allegedly severely beat and pepper-sprayed detainees earlier this month, according to a lawyer representing two of them.
In a court declaration, lawyer Katherine Blankenship said her clients and other detainees were targeted after they complained on April 2 about being unable to access working phones. The phones, which were not operational, serve as detainees’ main means of communicating with family members and legal counsel.
