'If You Can Keep It': "Alligator Alcatraz" And Due Process

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4.4 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

The controversial immigration detention center — dubbed by Florida officials and the Trump administration, "Alligator Alcatraz"-- has already hit some legal snags since opening earlier this month.

Civil rights groups are suing the Trump administration over due process complaints. The lawsuit alleges detainees are being held without charges and aren't being given access to their attorneys.

It comes after reports of overcrowded cells, overflowing toilets, and no access to prescription medications.

The center was constructed in only eight days at an airport in the Everglades. Three weeks after it opened, around 100 people have already been deported straight from the center.

We discuss the legal rights of those held in immigration detention centers and what's happening inside the one in the Everglades.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Federal funding for public media has been eliminated, which means decades of support for public radio and television from both political parties is ending.
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0:19.5	Make your gift at donate.npr.org.
0:22.7	And thank you.
0:27.4	This is sad, sad, hopeless.
0:37.0	It's a type of torture.
0:38.9	It's not really even worried about me.
0:40.7	It's about not being able to see my son.
0:43.3	He's six.
0:44.5	He's about to turn seven in November.
0:49.2	And I don't even know about going to be able to see him as birthday.
0:53.0	That was Juan Palma Martinez and Gonzalo Almanza Valdez, talking to CNN about being held at what
1:00.5	Florida state official dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. President Trump and his administration have also
1:06.1	adopted that term. The center was constructed in only eight days within a training airport in the Florida
1:12.0	Everglades. After three weeks of its opening, around 100 people have already been deported
1:17.4	straight from the center. It's a detention center. It's not the four seasons. It's not the Ritz Carlton.
1:24.3	These are criminal aliens who have been caught by DHS ICE and are sent there for on final
1:33.0	deportation orders. That was Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Angolia speaking to live now from Fox
1:40.2	last month. Civil rights groups and attorneys are suing the Trump administration over due
1:45.4	process complaints, and lawyers allege detainees are being held without charges and blocked
1:50.7	from legal counsel. So for today's installment of if you can keep it, we look at the legal
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