A new lawsuit filed on Friday brings the Alligator Alcatraz detention center in Florida under legal scrutiny for allegations of physical violence against a Cuban detainee identified as Raiko López and the use of pepper spray in closed cells against other inmates.
The legal document details that López was beaten by eight guards on April 2 during an inmate protest over lack of access to telephone services and external communication, reported the television network Telemundo.
According to the lawsuit, López suffered facial bruises, injuries to his limbs, and attempts at suffocation. After the beating, he was placed in isolation for nine days without receiving adequate medical attention, despite reporting intense pain in his chest and head.
The complaint also alleges the use of pepper spray in enclosed cells against other detainees, which reportedly resulted in one of them suffering a wrist fracture and an elderly man fainting due to lack of ventilation.
This lawsuit adds to a long history of legal disputes against the center, built in just eight days by order of the Republican governor Ron DeSantis using emergency powers and opened on July 3, 2025, at the Dade-Collier airport, within the Big Cypress National Preserve in Ochopee.
Between 700 and 800 Cubans are being held at the center, 70% of whom do not have final deportation orders, and many have been imprisoned for months, while migrants from other nationalities typically stay only two or three weeks.
Reports of violence are not new in Alligator Alcatraz. In December 2025, hundreds of Cubans staged a massive protest to demand freedom, but it was suppressed with blows and pepper spray.
In February, Gladys Carredeguas, attorney for the Cuban reggaeton artist Abel Díaz Rodríguez, known artistically as El Chulo, reported alleged mistreatment of her client in the detention center, where the musician has been in the custody of ICE since January 22.
Carredeguas explained that he received multiple calls from detainees at the center, who informed him that the artist was beaten, thrown to the ground, and subsequently taken to a solitary confinement cell, a space that the inmates refer to as "the hole," after several detainees requested urgent medications for an elderly man who had not received his treatment.
In December, the organization Amnesty International classified some practices of the center as torture, including the prolonged use of shackles.
In the legal front, on March 27, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in the case H.C.R. v. Noem, which compelled authorities to provide all detainees with immediate confidential calls and attorney visits without prior appointments.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals also heard oral arguments this past Monday regarding an environmental lawsuit filed by groups such as Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee tribe, with a decision still pending.
Corene Kendrick, deputy director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), was emphatic following the March injunction.
"The right to legal representation is a constitutional right. We will not stop until we close this abusive facility," they promised.
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