Case Intel

• Florida’s Everglades camp faces a class challenge arguing the state has no 287(g) authority to detain migrants.
• Plaintiff says detainees were “invisible” to ICE systems, lacked bond decisions, and were pushed to sign English-only removal forms.
• Immediate asks include habeas relief and an injunction; early rulings on authority and custody procedures could arrive on a fast timetable.

By SAMUEL LOPEZ

USA HERALD (August 24, 2025) — Immigration advocates launched a fresh attack late Friday on Florida’s Everglades detention camp, filing a proposed class action that says the state simply lacks the power under the Immigration and Nationality Act to hold people for deportation. The lead plaintiff, identified as M.A., argues Florida officials are invoking Section 287(g) as a catch-all badge of authority when, in reality, that section deputizes only specifically trained and certified officers under formal agreements with the federal government—not entire state agencies running their own “immigration jail” in the swamp.

The complaint, filed in the Middle District of Florida, says the INA does not authorize state agencies to detain immigrants during the federal removal process and that Florida’s facility is operating outside the statute’s strict guardrails. According to the suit, detainees at the camp have gone without initial custody and bond determinations, don’t appear in ICE’s public locator, and—until recently—couldn’t even file bond petitions or attend hearings. That, the filing says, isn’t a paperwork glitch; it’s a symptom of “clear lack of authority at the heart of the facility’s operations.”

M.A. has lived in the U.S. since 2018, is married to a U.S. citizen, and helps raise five U.S. citizen stepchildren, the suit says. He entered on a visa, applied for asylum, and holds a work permit, Social Security card, and driver’s license. He was arrested outside his home on July 23 and, by July 26, was confined at the Everglades camp. There, officers allegedly pressured him to sign a voluntary removal form written in English that was never translated. “M.A. had no intention of agreeing to removal,” the complaint adds. “He wants to stay in the United States with his wife and stepchildren and finish pursuing his asylum application.” The filing also says that while he could walk before detention, he now uses a wheelchair and has twice been hospitalized in a month.

On a July 12 guided tour for legislators, Florida’s Division of Emergency Management—the agency running the site—described it as a “state-run immigration facility” with power “rooted in 287(g),” according to the complaint. The plaintiffs counter that any 287(g) authority flows to particular employees who have completed DHS training and certification, not to the agency itself—and they say FDEM has no 287(g) agreement with ICE at all. “People are being held without charge, cut off from their attorneys, and made invisible in the immigration system,” said Amy Godshall of the ACLU of Florida in a statement. “Families cannot even find out where their loved ones are. This is a crisis created entirely by the state’s reckless decision to ignore federal law and invent its own immigration jail in the middle of the Everglades.”

M.A. petitions for a writ of habeas corpus and seeks injunctive relief on behalf of a class, urging the federal court to halt detentions that, he says, were never authorized by Congress. The legal team includes Spencer Amdur, Michael K.T. Tan, Cody Wofsy, Hannah Steinberg, Corene Kendrick, Kyle Virgien, Omar Jadwat, and Eunice H. Cho of the ACLU Foundation; Amy Godshall and Daniel Tilley of the ACLU of Florida; Miriam Haskell and Alana Greer of Community Justice Project Inc.; and Mark Fleming and Mark Feldman of the National Immigrant Justice Center. The case is M.A. et al. v. Guthrie et al., No. 2:25-cv-00765 (M.D. Fla.).

What Section 287(g) Actually Does: The federal statute lets DHS train and certify individual state officers to perform specific immigration functions under federal supervision. It doesn't authorize states to operate their own immigration detention facilities or bypass federal custody procedures. Think of it as deputizing sheriffs, not licensing state agencies to run parallel immigration systems.

The case is M.A. et al. v. Guthrie et al., case number 2:25-cv-00765, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.