A Colombian legislator joined local clergy and immigrant advocates on Sunday in demanding Alligator Alcatraz be closed and detainees released to end what they describe as a "national and international" human rights crisis.
Carmen Felisa Ramírez Boscán, a member of the Colombian House of Representatives and an Indigenous Wayu leader, spoke to more than 150 people who attended Sunday's vigil outside the massive facility in the middle of the Everglades. It was the 30th weekend in a row that activists protested Alligator Alcatraz.
Ramírez Boscán said she and other Colombian legislators have been hearing from scores of Colombian detainees and their families about "overcrowded and dangerous" conditions inside detention centers. She recently visited one in Houston.
In a statement, the Rev. Roy Terry of Cornerstone United Methodist Church, one of the vigil organizers, said: "Scripture commands us to love God and to love our neighbor and each week we gather to pray our nation returns to its senses."
"The government’s unconscionable attacks and inhumane detention of immigrants are an affront to God and to human dignity," Terry added.
READ MORE: Lawyers say access to 'Alligator Alcatraz' is still hard to get as a judge weighs the case
At Sunday's vigil, family members of those currently held in the facility shared stories of their detained relatives.
Clergy and immigrant advocates held their first protest at the facility in the Everglades on August 3, 2025.
"Organizers have vowed to return to the gates of the Everglades facility every week until it is shut down," Damico said.
The Everglades facility was built last summer at a remote airstrip by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to support President Donald Trump’s deportation policies. Florida also has built a second immigration detention center in north Florida. The facilities house immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.
Last week, the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature moved closer to continuing funding for Alligator Alcatraz and other facilities as part of emergency funding for illegal immigration enforcement.
After initially moving to block Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ability to use emergency funding for illegal immigration enforcement, the House on Thursday backed away from the proposal.
The House approved an amendment to the bill (HB 5503) that would allow DeSantis’ office, which includes the Division of Emergency Management, to dip into the Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund for a manmade or technological emergency.
The state has spent $573 million on immigration enforcement, including constructing Alligator Alcatraz, a state-run detention facility in the Everglades, according to a DEM report.
Between 2023 and 2025, the state spent over $29 million from the fund on equipment, including helicopter engines, 2,500 cargo vans and trailers for immigration enforcement-related purposes, the report says.
The creation of the state-run facility has been repeatedly challenged in federal court.
Attorneys for detainees said Thursday that they are still facing hurdles in getting access to their clients, despite state claims that those barriers have been removed.
Two attorneys filed statements with a federal court in Fort Myers, Florida, saying their clients were unable to call them using staff cellphones, and the attorneys were unable to make unannounced visits to the facility.
A state contractor late last month testified that both options were available to detainees and attorneys during a hearing over whether detainees at the facility were getting adequate access to their lawyers.
U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell has yet to rule on whether to grant the detainees’ request that they get the same access to their attorneys as detainees do at federally-run detention centers.
