Guards at a Florida immigration detention center in the Everglades severely beat and pepper-sprayed migrant detainees after they complained about nonfunctioning phones, according to a lawyer for two of the men held at the facility. The phones are the primary way detainees communicate with family members and legal representation.
Attorney Katherine Blankenship described the incident in a court declaration, saying guards first taunted detainees in a cell before becoming "more aggressive and were yelling and threatening to enter the cage." One detainee was punched in the face after approaching a guard, and guards then began beating others in the cell.
Blankenship said one of her clients was punched in the right eye, thrown to the floor, and kicked in the head by multiple guards. A guard placed his knee on the detainee's neck while restraining him, she wrote. Another detainee — not among her clients — had his wrist broken during the incident. A photo included in the filing shows one detainee with a visibly bruised eye nearly a week after the beating. Phone service was restored the following day with no explanation for the outage.
The declaration was filed as part of an ongoing lawsuit alleging that state and federal officials have failed to comply with a preliminary injunction issued last month by U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell. The judge ordered the facility to provide detainees with timely, free, confidential, and unmonitored calls with their attorneys, directing officials to supply at least one working telephone for every 25 people held there.
State officials have denied restricting attorney access, citing security and staffing challenges for any communication disruptions. They filed notice last week that they intend to appeal the judge's ruling. The facility, constructed last year under Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration, has faced multiple lawsuits since it opened. Federal officials named as defendants in the case have also denied that detainees' First Amendment rights were violated.
