A federal judge late Monday dismissed portions of a lawsuit brought by Alligator Alcatraz detainees, handing the Trump administration a partial win in its pushback on allegations that the migrants aren’t being given sufficient access to attorneys.
U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz agreed the administration’s new designation of a Miami-based immigration court to handle the detainees’ cases makes their Fifth Amendment claims against the federal government moot.
“This is a classic case of mootness,” wrote Ruiz, who was appointed to the bench by President Trump.
As for the detainees’ separate First Amendment claims, which allege they aren’t able to communicate confidentially with counsel, Ruiz said those remain a live controversy that can proceed.
Still, the judge agreed with the administration that those issues should go before the federal judicial district in Florida that covers the Alligator Alcatraz site, rather than Ruiz’s courtroom in Miami.
“The job of the District Court is not to rule first and ask questions later,” Ruiz wrote.
“Instead, it must ensure that it is imbued with the ability to decide such a case in the first instance, pursuant to the limits on judicial power imposed by Article III and Congress’s statutory limitations on venue,” he continued.
Ruiz was assigned the case filed by a group of migrants detained at Alligator Alcatraz and several immigration legal services organizations. They are represented by Americans for Immigrant Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union.
They sued soon after officials opened Alligator Alcatraz in early July to house thousands of migrants in the facility surrounded by the Florida Everglades. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has cast it as a model for state-run immigrant detention facilities elsewhere in the country.
The plaintiffs urged Ruiz to issue an injunction guaranteeing that migrants can promptly communicate with their attorney confidentially as the litigation proceeds. Monday’s ruling landed just hours after the judge convened a multihour hearing in the case.
At the hearing, lawyers for both the Trump administration and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) administration contended that the detainees for weeks have been able to receive a meeting and there are now no complaints.
“Plaintiffs would have Your Honor go to Alligator Alcatraz and become the warden,” Nick Meros, an attorney representing Florida, told the judge.
Some of detainees had also claimed their Fifth Amendment protections were violated because the administration had failed to identify an immigration court with jurisdiction over their cases.
The Justice Department over the weekend, however, designated Krome Detention Center in Miami to handle the migrants’ cases. The detainees still raised alarm that the administration could change course again, but the judge declined to intervene by finding the matter moot.
The lawsuit is one of two major legal challenges to Alligator Alcatraz. Environmental groups convinced another judge to temporarily block new construction at the site over accusations it violates federal law, but that case hasn’t impacted officials’ ability to detain individuals.
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