Armed Guards Are Keeping Immigration Attorneys Out Of 'Alligator Alcatraz': Lawsuit
'The government has banned in-person legal visitation, any confidential phone or video communication, and confidential exchange of written documents,' the ACLU noted in a Wednesday release announcing the suit, which it filed against the Trump administration.
These policies violate immigrants' right to due process and right to communicate with legal counsel, the organization says. It and a number of legal groups are suing so detainees can be guaranteed a viable means of reaching their attorneys and contesting their detentions.
The suit comes amid reports of abysmal living conditions at the Everglades facility, including a lack of water for bathing, inedible food and rampant mosquito infestations, as well as growing concerns about how few legal protections detainees have.
As noted in the suit, immigration attorneys attempting to visit their clients onsite have waited for hours only to be turned away and given either a faulty email address or a visitation request form that requires them to submit documents for facility approval.
'Attorneys have taken the long road trip to the facility to try and meet with their clients in person—a universal practice at every other immigration detention facility in the United States—only to be greeted at an armed checkpoint near the facility and barred from entry,' the lawsuit reads.
Beyond the visitation barriers that attorneys have run into, many have also struggled to contact their clients via phone or email, the lawsuit said. Emails they've sent have bounced back, and calls have gotten disconnected after long hold periods, the lawsuit said.
'Attorneys have also attempted to locate a facility phone number, email address, or any instruction to arrange contact with clients held at the facility, with little to show for their Efforts,' the suit notes.
Attorneys said they are left with little ability to advocate for their clients.
'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,' per the lawsuit.
The Florida Department of Emergency Management, which oversees the operations of the detention facility, previously told The Miami Herald that detainees have 'regular access to phone and video calls with their attorneys and family members upon request.'
Neither an FDEM spokesperson nor a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson responded immediately to a HuffPost request for comment.
Reliable contact with legal counsel is crucial for immigrants seeking to fight deportations, experts say.
'Lack of access to counsel is well documented to lead to lower rates of release and ultimately lower rates of relief being granted,' University of San Francisco Law Professor Lindsay Harris previously told HuffPost.
Related...
Rep. Maxwell Frost Shares Ominous Findings From 'Alligator Alcatraz' Visit
Republicans Fundraise Off Of Disgusting Joke On T-Shirts
'No Water To Take A Bath': Detainees Allege Horrific Conditions At 'Alligator Alcatraz'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The California governor is currently suing the Fox News host for $787 million.
Gavin Newsom showed no remorse to Fox News' Jesse Watters after the host was forced to issue a groveling apology over the network's reporting on Donald Trump's phone call to the California governor. Newsom filed a $787 million defamation lawsuit against the network—the same amount Fox had to cough up to Dominion Voting Systems for airing false claims about the 2020 election—claiming it misrepresented calls between him and Trump about unrest during the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. On his Thursday night show, Watters backpedaled, admitting Newsom was right to fire back at Trump's claim that he spoke to him on June 9. Newsom posted on X last month: 'There was no call. Not even a voicemail.'
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why it's so challenging for Trump to fire Powell
A firing of Jerome Powell by President Trump would likely open up a legal war never before seen in the US, without any guarantee of a courtroom victory for the White House. That may be why Trump hasn't done so. Yet. Powell has made his intentions clear. He said earlier this year that he wouldn't leave if Trump tried to fire him and that his removal is 'not permitted by law.' Fed officials privately have been preparing for a legal battle as far back as Trump's first term, when the president also toyed with removing the chair, according to the Wall Street Journal. The strength of Powell's case is based on some protections of Fed autonomy already embedded in US statute. The Federal Reserve Act, which created the central bank in 1913 and was amended in 1935, states that each member of the Fed board shall hold office for 14 years "unless sooner removed for cause by the President." The intention of the "for cause" condition was to enhance the Fed's independence by making it more difficult for a president to fire its board members, who are appointed by the president. There are also signs that the Supreme Court would step in if Trump were to act, although the high court's views on the topic are unclear. In an ambiguous ruling earlier this year, Supreme Court justices allowed Trump to temporarily proceed with the firings of board members at two other independent agencies. In granting the administration's request, the court said that in its judgment, the government "is likely to show" that the fired board members exercised "considerable executive power," a view that suggests the president possesses broader power to remove the officials at will. Read more: How much control does the president have over the Fed and interest rates? Legal challenges from those board members are still playing out at an appeals court. But Powell got a good sign Thursday when a Washington, D.C., district court judge ruled that another Trump firing of FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter was illegal and that she should be reappointed. The judge cited a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent that limits the power of the president to dismiss independent agency board members except in cases of neglect or malfeasance. That precedent offers Powell a layer of protection. It was set in a 1935 case titled Humphrey's Executor v. US that challenged President Franklin Roosevelt's termination of the US Federal Trade Commissioner. The court held that the president's authority to terminate agency officials at will was limited to purely executive officers, and not those leading independent agencies that engage in regulation and adjudication. Congress, the court said, had power to limit the president's removal power over those officials "for cause" — then described that term to mean inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance. Trump is challenging whether that precedent applies across various independent agencies, but the Supreme Court has not yet made a definitive ruling on whether it should stand. If the precedent falls and leaves no explicit protection for the central bank, a Powell firing could certainly be a lot easier to pull off. 'For cause' Powell does have one major vulnerability, however. That 'for cause' language embedded in the Federal Reserve Act hasn't really been defined or tested in court. The statute also doesn't have any language that specifically addresses the chair of the Board of Governors. And the White House has been using a new line of attack against Powell that could offer a path to a 'for cause' dismissal, as the president and his allies raise concerns about a $2.5 billion renovation of the central bank's headquarters. "I mean it's possible there's fraud involved with the $2.5 billion renovation," Trump told reporters on Wednesday, after saying earlier that the project "sort of is" a fireable offense. He said he wasn't planning to fire Powell but also left the door open, saying, "I don't rule out anything, but I think it's highly unlikely, unless he has to leave for fraud.' National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett — one of Powell's potential successors — said last Sunday on ABC News's "This Week" that whether the president has the legal authority to fire Powell before his term is up next May "is being looked into" and that "certainly, if there's cause, he does." But he also acknowledged it was a 'highly uncertain legal matter.' Politico reported that outside lawyers told the White House counsel's office it would likely lose a legal fight with Powell if Trump removed Powell solely over accusations that he mishandled renovations and that White House officials were also unsure whether it would work. Politico quoted one official who said, 'Whether or not it's illegal, I don't know. But is it a good thing to point out to damage this guy's image? Yeah.' The White House is certainly showing no signs of letting up on its pressure. They are seeking a site visit to see the Fed's renovations in person. Powell has asked the Fed's inspector general to review the costs involved. He also sent White House budget director Russ Vought a letter Thursday offering a point-by-point rebuttal of questions raised about the project and denying reports of a VIP elevator and VIP dining rooms. "We take seriously the responsibility to be good stewards of public resources," he said, and "we have taken great care to ensure the project is carefully overseen.' Case Western Reserve University business law professor Eric Chaffee said he thinks Powell would win any legal battle with the White House on the 'for cause' clause, but he doesn't think such a confrontation will come to pass given that Powell only has 10 months left as chair. "We're just so close to the end of the term that I think the Trump administration is very likely just to wait things out,' he said. Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Gizmodo
22 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
The IRS Is Building a Vast System to Share Millions of Taxpayers' Data With ICE
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. The Internal Revenue Service is building a computer program that would give deportation officers unprecedented access to confidential tax data. ProPublica has obtained a blueprint of the system, which would create an 'on demand' process allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to obtain the home addresses of people it's seeking to deport. Last month, in a previously undisclosed dispute, the acting general counsel at the IRS, Andrew De Mello, refused to turn over the addresses of 7.3 million taxpayers sought by ICE. In an email obtained by ProPublica, De Mello said he had identified multiple legal 'deficiencies' in the agency's request. Two days later, on June 27, De Mello was forced out of his job, people familiar with the dispute said. The addresses have not yet been released to ICE. De Mello did not respond to requests for comment, and the administration did not address questions sent by ProPublica about his departure. The Department of Government Efficiency began pushing the IRS to provide taxpayer data to immigration agents soon after President Donald Trump took office. The tax agency's acting general counsel refused and was replaced by De Mello, who Trump administration officials viewed as more willing to carry out the president's agenda. Soon after, the Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, and the IRS negotiated a 'memorandum of understanding' that included specific legal guardrails to safeguard taxpayers' private information. In his email, De Mello said ICE's request for millions of records did not meet those requirements, which include having a written assurance that each taxpayer whose address is being sought was under active criminal investigation. 'There's just no way ICE has 7 million real criminal investigations, that's a fantasy,' said a former senior IRS official who had been advising the agency on this issue. The demands from the DHS were 'unprecedented,' the official added, saying the agency was pressing the IRS to do what amounted to 'a big data dump.' In the past, when law enforcement sought IRS data to support its investigations, agencies would give the IRS the full legal name of the target, an address on file and an explanation of why the information was relevant to a criminal inquiry. Such requests rarely involved more than a dozen people at a time, former IRS officials said. Danny Werfel, IRS commissioner during the Biden administration, said the privacy laws allowing federal investigators to obtain taxpayer data have never 'been read to open the door to the sharing of thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of tax records for a broad-based enforcement initiative.' A spokesperson for the White House said the planned use of IRS data was legal and a means of fulfilling Trump's campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations of 'illegal criminal aliens.' Taxpayer data is among the most confidential in the federal government and is protected by strict privacy laws, which have historically limited its transfer to law enforcement and other government agencies. Unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer return information is a felony that can carry a penalty of up to five years in prison. The system that the IRS is now creating would give ICE automated access to home addresses en masse, limiting the ability of IRS officials to consider the legality of transfers. IRS insiders who reviewed a copy of the blueprint said it could result in immigration agents raiding wrong or outdated addresses. 'If this program is implemented in its current form, it's extremely likely that incorrect addresses will be given to DHS and individuals will be wrongly targeted,' said an IRS engineer who examined the blueprints and who, like other officials, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. The dispute that ended in De Mello's ouster was the culmination of months of pressure on the IRS to turn over massive amounts of data in ways that would redefine the relationship between the agency and law enforcement and reduce taxpayers' privacy, records and interviews show. In one meeting in late March between senior IRS and DHS officials, a top ICE official made a suggestion: Why doesn't Homeland Security simply provide the name and state of its targets and have the IRS return the addresses of everyone who matches that criteria? The IRS lawyers were stunned. They feared they could face criminal liability if they handed over the addresses of individuals who were not under a criminal investigation. The conversation and news of deeper collaboration with ICE so disturbed career staff that it led to a series of departures in late March and early April across the IRS' legal, IT and privacy offices. They were 'pushing the boundaries of the law,' one official said. 'Everyone at IRS felt the same way.' The technical blueprint obtained by ProPublica shows that engineers at the agency are preparing to give DHS what it wants: a system that enables massive automated data sharing. The goal is to launch the new system before the end of July, two people familiar with the matter said. The DHS effort to obtain IRS data comes as top immigration enforcement leaders face escalating White House pressure to deport some 3,000 people per day, according to reports. One federal agent tasked with assisting ICE on deportations said recent operations have been hamstrung by outdated addresses. Better information could dramatically speed up arrests. 'Some of the leads that they were giving us were old,' said the agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the press. 'They're like from two administrations ago.' In early March, immigrants rights groups sued the IRS hoping to block the plan, arguing that the memorandum of understanding between DHS and the IRS is illegal. But a judge in early May ruled against them, saying the broader agreement complied with Section 6103, the existing law regulating IRS data sharing. That opened the door for engineers to begin building the system. The judge did not address the technical blueprint, which didn't exist at the time of the ruling. But the case is pending, which means the new system could still come under legal review. Until now, little was known about the push and pull between the two agencies or the exact technical mechanics behind the arrangement. The plan has been shrouded in secrecy even within the IRS, with details of its development withheld from regular communications. Several IRS engineers and lawyers have avoided working on the project out of concerns about personal legal risk. Asked about the new system, a spokesperson for IRS parent agency the Treasury Department said the memorandum of understanding, often called an MOU, 'has been litigated and determined to be a lawful application of Section 6103, which provides for information sharing by the IRS in precise circumstances associated with law enforcement requests.' At a time when Trump is making threats to deport not only undocumented immigrants but also U.S. citizens, the scope of information-sharing with the IRS could continue to grow, according to documents reviewed by ProPublica and sources familiar with the matter: DHS has been looking for ways to expand the agreement that could allow Homeland Security officials to seek IRS data on Americans being investigated for various crimes. Last month, an ICE attorney proposed updating the MOU to authorize new data requests on people 'associated with criminal activities which may include United States citizens or lawful permanent residents,' according to a document seen by ProPublica. The status of this proposal is unclear. De Mello, at the time, rejected it and called for senior Treasury Department leadership to personally sign off on such a significant change. The White House described DHS' work with the IRS as a good-faith effort to identify and deport those who are living in the country illegally. 'ProPublica continues to degrade their already terrible reputation by suggesting we should turn a blind eye to criminal illegal aliens present in the United States for the sake of trying to collect tax payments from them,' White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement after receiving questions about the blueprint from ProPublica. She pointed to the April MOU as giving the government the authority to create the new system and added, 'This isn't a surveillance system. … It's part of President Trump's promise to carry out the mass deportation of criminal illegal aliens — the promise that the American people elected him on and he is committed to fulfilling.' In a separate statement, a senior DHS official also cited the court's approval of the MOU, saying that it 'outlines a process to ensure that sensitive taxpayer information is protected while allowing law enforcement to effectively pursue criminal violations.' The new system would represent a sea change, allowing law enforcement to request enormous swaths of confidential data in bulk through an automated, computerized process. The system, according to the blueprint and interviews with IRS engineers, would work like this: First, DHS would send the IRS a spreadsheet containing the names and previous addresses of the people it's targeting. The request would include the date of a final removal order, a relevant criminal statute ICE is using to investigate the individual, and the tax period for which information is sought. If DHS fails to include any of this information, the system would reject the request. The system then attempts to match the information provided by the DHS to a specific taxpayer identification number, which is the primary method by which the IRS identifies an individual in its databases. If the system makes a match, it accesses the individual's associated tax file and pulls the address listed during the most recent tax period. Then the system would produce a new spreadsheet enriched with taxpayer data that contains DHS' targets' last known addresses. The spreadsheet would include a record of names rejected for lack of required information and names for which it could not make a match. Tax and privacy experts say they worry about how such a powerful yet crude platform could make dangerous mistakes. Because the search starts with a name instead of a taxpayer identification number, it risks returning the address of an innocent person with the same name as or a similar address to that of one of ICE's targets. The proposed system assumes the data provided by DHS is accurate and that each targeted individual is the subject of a valid criminal investigation. In effect, the IRS has no way to independently check the bases of these requests, experts told ProPublica. In addition, the blueprint does not limit the amount of data that can be transferred or how often DHS can request it. The system could easily be expanded to acquire all the information the IRS holds on taxpayers, said technical experts and IRS engineers who reviewed the documents. By shifting a single parameter, the program could return more information than just a target's address, said an engineer familiar with the plan, including employer and familial relationships. Engineers based at IRS offices in Lanham, Maryland, and Dallas are developing the blueprint. For decades, the American government has encouraged everyone who makes an income in the U.S. to pay taxes — regardless of immigration status — with an implicit promise that their information would be protected. Now that same data may be used to locate and deport noncitizens. 'For years, the IRS has told immigrants that it only cares that they pay their taxes,' said Nandan Joshi, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group, which is seeking to block the data-sharing agreement in federal court. 'By agreeing to share taxpayer data with ICE on a mass basis, the IRS has gone back on its word.' The push to share IRS data with DHS emerged while Elon Musk's DOGE reshaped the engineering staff of the IRS. Sam Corcos, a Silicon Valley startup founder with no government experience, pushed out more than 50 IRS engineers and restructured the agency's engineering priorities while he was the senior DOGE official at the agency. He later became chief information officer at Treasury. He has also led a separate IRS effort to create a master database using products from Silicon Valley giant Palantir Technologies, enabling the government to link and search large swaths of data. Corcos didn't respond to a request for comment. The White House said DOGE is not part of the DHS-IRS pact. Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Finance, which oversees the IRS, told ProPublica the system being built was ripe for abuse. It 'would allow an outside agency unprecedented access to IRS records for reasons that have nothing to do with tax administration, opening the door to endless fishing expeditions,' he said. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the department's internal watchdog, is already probing efforts by Trump and DOGEto obtain private taxpayer data and other sensitive information, ProPublica reported in April. The Trump administration continues to add government agencies to its deportation drive. DOGE and DHS are also working to build a national citizenship database, NPR reported last month. The database links information from the Social Security Administration and the DHS, ostensibly for the purpose of allowing state and local election officials to verify U.S. citizenship. And in May, a senior Treasury Department official directed 250 IRS criminal investigative agents to help deportation operations, a significant shift for two agencies that historically have had separate missions. McKenzie Funk contributed reporting, and Kirsten Berg and Alex Mierjeski contributed research.
