Since the controversial detention facility opened in the Florida Everglades earlier this summer, immigrants held there, advocacy groups and two federal judges have asked this question repeatedly.

Civil rights attorneys say the remote Everglades facility makes it nearly impossible for immigrants to speak confidentially with lawyers or even find out which immigration court can hear their cases....

“The situation at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is so anomalous from what is typically granted at other immigration facilities,” Eunice Cho, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, said...