Lawyers Report Disappearance of Hundreds of Alligator Alcatraz Detainees From ICE Database: 'It's a Black Hole'

Hundreds of people once held at the Alligator Alcatraz immigration processing center in Florida have vanished from federal records, prompting lawyers to accuse U.S. authorities of running a detention "black hole," as a new sprawling report from El País has revealed.

Immigrant advocacy groups told the news site that detainees formerly at the facility west of Miami disappeared from Immigration and Customs Enforcement's online locator and searches now yield the message: "Call the Florida Department of Corrections for details." Luis Sorto of Sanctuary of the South, which has challenged restrictions on attorney access at the site, said plaintiffs in a lawsuit were moved elsewhere but never appeared in ICE's tracking system.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed the case, described the center to El Pais as a "black hole," noting that some people were "missing," effectively "off the radar" of the immigration system, and "their lawyers and families often don't know where they are or how to contact them."

Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU's National Prison Project, told the site that ICE's "persistent refusal" to update detainee locations "is a significant obstacle to effective attorney-client communication, undermines due process, and is yet another hallmark of the detention system's cruelty."

The Miami Herald on Tuesday reported that by late August about 800 detainees no longer appeared in ICE's database, while another 450 were listed with no location, only the instruction "Call ICE for details." Attorneys said this vague notation could mean transfer, deportation, or continued detention without transparency.

The Herald described one particular case of a Guatemalan man deported before his bond hearing and a Cuban man who vanished for more than a week after ICE told his family he was in California, only to turn up deported to Mexico. "This is like psychological torture," his mother told the news site.

Alligator Alcatraz, constructed in just over a week on a former airstrip in the Everglades, began operating in July with President Donald Trump's endorsement. Allegations of poor conditions surfaced almost immediately. A judge ordered the camp dismantled in August, but an appeals court has allowed it to remain open while litigation continues.