A Venezuelan man who was the subject of a high-profile health scare at Alligator Alcatraz this month aimed to return to his home country on Friday, his lawyer said.
This comes as a federal judge denied requests from both state and federal governments to pause the order to dismantle the immigration detention facility in the Everglades, and as the Scripps News Group has learned that detainees were already being removed from the facility, even before last week's court order was issued.
WATCH BELOW: 'Alligator Alcatraz' detainee faced 'life-or-death situation,' attorney says
Lawyers and court documents reveal that some detainees are being deported while others are being transferred to ICE facilities like Krome in Miami-Dade County.
One immigration attorney said he has "never worked so hard to get a client deported" after his client experienced what he described as a life-threatening situation at the facility.
"I've practiced immigration law for over a decade. I deal with a lot of terrible situations of detainees. I've never experienced anything as terrible as the life-or-death situation, which my client still finds himself in," said attorney Eric Lee.
Lee represents Luis Manuel Rivas Velasquez, who is known to his 166,000 Instagram followers as car enthusiast "Luis Frio."
"Luis Velasquez is a 38-year-old Venezuelan man who came to the United States lawfully and was paroled into this country in 2024. In the last month, he's found himself living a total nightmare," Lee said.
According to Lee, Velasquez was detained in Alligator Alcatraz in early August when he became seriously ill.
"He caught some disease which is going viral inside of this facility, and as a result, was essentially unable to breathe. He collapsed," Lee said. "If it wasn't for one of his cellmates, who happened to have been a nurse from Cuba, he may very well have passed away in Alligator Alcatraz."
The incident occurred around Aug. 6. The following evening, in response to widespread rumors that a detainee had died, Homeland Security officials stated that Velasquez had fainted, was taken to the hospital and then returned to Alligator Alcatraz.
Lee said that in the days that followed, his client was taken to a facility in another state.
"They shipped him away to the new Fort Bliss facility that has just opened up outside of El Paso, Texas," Lee said.
According to Lee, no one — including Velasquez's family — knew where he was until he called Lee last week.
"He was begging to be released. He had sounded like there were tears in his eyes, and he was asking me, 'Please, lawyer, get me out of here. They're denying me access to my medication. I'm worried I'm going to die in here. All I want to do is go home and see my family,'" Lee said.
Over the course of at least a week — during which Lee alleges Velasquez hadn't been allowed to change clothes, was denied access to his blood pressure medication, and wasn't allowed to self-deport — Velasquez's name was missing in ICE's detainee locator.
"Disappearances like the type that the Trump administration has engaged in, in the case of Mr. Velasquez, are unlawful," Lee said.
This comes despite statements encouraging self-deportation from Gov. Ron DeSantis and top Trump administration officials.
Eventually, Lee says Velasquez was moved to an ICE processing facility in El Paso, where the hope is to get him on a flight back to Venezuela on Friday. But Lee was reportedly unable to board a flight on Friday as his lawyer was told the flight was full.
"We don't know if his ongoing detention is in retribution for his courageous decision to tell the truth about what's happening to him, but that is increasingly what it looks like," Lee said.
The Florida Department of Emergency Management, which runs Alligator Alcatraz, forwarded questions to ICE.
ICE and other Homeland Security have acknowledged they have received our emails with questions about Velasquez, but so far have not provided any information.
This article was written by Jamie Ostroff for the Scripps News Group in West Palm Beach.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
