A lawyer says guards severely beat and pepper-sprayed detainees at a state-run immigration detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Florida Everglades. A lawyer for two of the detainees says the beating happened after they complained about not having phone access on April 2. The lawyer says the guards taunted and then attacked the detainees. Guards punched one of her clients in the face and broke another detainee's wrist. Phone service was restored the next day without explanation. The allegations are detailed in a court filing accusing officials of not complying with a judge's order to provide proper phone access for legal calls.

President Donald Trump has shared a video of a deadly attack at a Florida gas station, using it to justify his mass deportation agenda. Rolbert Joachin, 40, is charged with killing a woman on April 2 in Fort Myers. Trump and the Department of Homeland Security said Joachin is from Haiti. Critics argue Trump unfairly paints immigrants as criminals. Joachin reportedly confessed and is set for arraignment on May 4. Trump blames President Biden for granting Joachin Temporary Protected Status. This status allows immigrants from troubled countries to stay temporarily in the U.S., a policy Trump has criticized.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are no longer present at the Southwest International Airport (RSW) as of Sunday, April 5, according to Steve Hennigan, executive director and CEO of the Lee County Port Authority. Hennigan updated members of the Chamber of Southwest Florida with this information on Wednesday's presentation to the group about airport developments.

The Supreme Court is casting doubt on President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship in a consequential case that was magnified by Trump’s norm-breaking presence in the courtroom. Conservative and liberal justices on Wednesday questioned whether Trump’s order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens comports with either the Constitution or federal law. Trump heard Solicitor General D. John Sauer face one skeptical question after another. Justices asked about the legal basis for the order and voiced more practical concerns. The Republican president spent just over an hour inside the courtroom, staying only for arguments by the government’s lawyer.

A federal judge has ruled that the immigration detention facility known as "Alligator Alcatraz" must provide people detained there with better access to their attorneys. U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell issued a preliminary injunction Friday saying officials at the Florida facility must provide access to timely, free, confidential, unmonitored, unrecorded outgoing legal calls. They must also provide at least one operable telephone for every 25 people detained there. The order also outlined information that must be made available to detained people and their attorneys in multiple languages. The lawsuit says the rules force visits to be booked three days ahead. It says delays and transfers block legal help. State and federal officials deny rights violations.

Federal immigration officers were deployed at Southwest Florida International Airport Monday to supplement the Transportation Security Administration during a government shutdown currently in effect.

Florida initially sought $1.4 billion from the feds for Alligator Alcatraz.

Border czar Tom Homan says the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to mass detentions, protests and two deaths is coming to an end. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched Operation Metro Surge on Dec. 1. Federal authorities say the sweeps focused on the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area have led to the arrest of more than 4,000 people. While the Trump administration has called those arrested "dangerous criminal illegal aliens," many people with no criminal records, including children and U.S. citizens, have also been detained. According to a new AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 U.S. adults say President Donald Trump has "gone too far" in sending federal immigration agents into U.S. cities.

An article in the Feb. 10 edition of WIRED magazine says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to lease offices throughout the US as part of a secret, monthslong expansion campaign.

A seven-month-old Bonita Springs organization is helping families navigate life after a loved one is deported.