Tag Archives: Miami

WSWS: Guards riot, beat immigrant detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz” concentration camp in Florida Everglades

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On August 28, Noticias 23, the local Spanish-language Univision station in Miami–Ft. Lauderdale, received several frantic phone calls from immigrants detained at the Florida Everglades concentration camp, reporting that guards were assaulting and beating them.

In phone calls recorded by the outlet, immigrants at the facility—dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by President Donald Trump and his fascist supporters—said that at least four detainees were injured after guards deployed tear gas and began beating them.

“People started shouting because a relative had died, and they started shouting for freedom. At that moment, a prison team came in and started beating everyone,” said one of the detainees in one of the three phone calls.

He continued, “Right now, it’s unrest, and well, we have the helicopter overhead. Everyone here has been beaten up, many people have bled, brother, tear gas, we are immigrants, we are not criminals, we are not murderers.”

Another detainee told the outlet, “There are helicopters up above and a lot of people are bleeding. They’re beating us, they’re mistreating us.”

In another phone call, an audible alarm screeched in the background as one of the immigrants pleaded through tears, “It’s the emergency alarm, please help us.”

Family members of immigrants at the facility also reported to Noticias 23 that guards were rioting. Univision/Noticias 23 sent a request for comment to the Florida state spokesperson who oversees the concentration camp, but as of this writing there has been no reply.

The riot at the concentration camp comes one week after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued a preliminary injunction barring any further transfers to the facility and ordering it to be shut down within 60 days. Williams’ decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of environmental groups and the Miccosukee tribe of Florida, who argued that the facility violated several environmental laws and endangered local species and tribal resources.

The state of Florida and the US federal government have asked Judge Williams to put her order on hold pending an appeal from the state. As of this writing, Williams has not ruled on the stay request. But hundreds of detainees have reportedly been moved to other detention facilities.

It appears the judge’s decision to shut down the camp infuriated the guards, who have sadistically taken out their anger on the remaining immigrants at the facility.

While the camp was initially sold to the public as a cheap alternative to house up to 5,000 immigrants, it appears that at its height just under 1,000 people were imprisoned in the hellish facility. On a tour last week following Judge Williams’ decision, Florida Representative Maxwell Frost (Democrat) estimated that between 300 and 350 people were still being held at the camp.

On August 27, the Associated Press reported that in a message sent to South Florida Rabbi Mario Rojzman on August 22, Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie said the camp was closing down operations quickly.

“[W]e are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days,” Guthrie wrote to Rojzman, indicating that the rabbi’s services would not be needed at the camp.

Questioned by an AP reporter about the email at an event in Orlando, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis did not dispute the account and indicated that the camp was no longer needed because the Department of Homeland Security was increasing the pace of deportations.

“Ultimately, it’s DHS’s decision where they want to process and stage detainees, and it’s their decision about when they want to bring them out,” DeSantis told AP.

The barbaric immigrant detention facility was hastily constructed two months ago in the middle of the Florida Everglades on a defunct airport tarmac. After construction was completed, Trump toured the facility with DeSantis, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and the fascist White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

Trump hailed the camp as a model to be emulated and openly mused that it could be used to imprison and deport US citizens: “But we also have a lot of bad people that have been here for a long time. … They are not new to our country, they are old to our country. Many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here too. You want to know the truth.”

As soon as the concentration camp opened, reports immediately emerged of cruel, inhumane and unlivable conditions. Overflowing toilets, humid tents filled with mosquitos and other insects, inedible food containing worms, and the denial of access to attorneys and medical care are just some of the abuses immigrants held at the facility have suffered.

Disease also appears to be spreading rampantly at the facility. Immigrants and guards have fallen ill from what appears to have been a massive COVID-19 outbreak that nearly killed Luis Manuel Rivas Velásquez, a 38-year-old Venezuelan man. Rivas Velásquez collapsed at the facility earlier this month after being denied medical care.

In addition to being a colossal human rights abuse, the concentration camp is also a tremendous waste of money. The state of Florida signed approximately $405 million in vendor contracts to build and operate the facility, and by July 2025 had already paid out about $245 million, according to the AP. Because of the judge’s ruling, the AP estimated the state stands to lose approximately $218 million.

Court documents submitted by the Florida Department of Emergency Management and reviewed by WPTV, the local NBC affiliate in West Palm Beach, found that it could cost as much as $20 million to tear down the camp.

Guards riot, beat immigrant detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz” concentration camp in Florida Everglades
In frantic phone calls, immigrants reported that guards deployed tear gas and assaulted them.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/08/29/uyvh-a29.html

Guardian: Detainees report alleged uprising at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’: ‘A lot of people have bled’

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Reports of incident were denied by Florida and Ice officials as detainees say they were beaten and teargas was fired

Reports of incident were denied by Florida and Ice officials as detainees say they were beaten and teargas was fired

Richard Luscombe in MiamiFri 29 Aug 2025 12.37 EDTShare

Guards at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail deployed teargas and engaged in a mass beating of detainees to quell a mini-uprising, it was reported on Friday.

The allegations, made by at least three detainees in phone calls to Miami’s Spanish language news channel Noticias 23, come as authorities race to empty the camp in compliance with a judge’s order to close the remote tented camp in the Everglades wetlands.

The incident took place after several migrants held there began shouting for “freedom” after one received news a relative had died, according to the outlet. A team of guards then rushed in and began beating individuals indiscriminately with batons, and fired teargas at them, the detainees said.

“They’ve beaten everyone here, a lot of people have bled.

Detainees report alleged uprising at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’: ‘A lot of people have bled’
Reports of incident were denied by Florida and Ice officials as detainees say they were beat and teargas was fired

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/29/alligator-alcatraz-uprising-florida-immigration

NBC News: Judge rules ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ can stay open but halts construction and bars new detainees

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Within 60 days, the facility must also remove “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles,” which calls into question how it would operate.

A federal judge in Miami ruled Thursday that “Alligator Alcatraz,” the contested migrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades, can remain operational for now but that it cannot be expanded and no additional detainees can be brought in.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams entered a preliminary injunction to prevent the installation of any additional industrial-style lighting and any site expansion. Her ruling further prevents “bringing any additional persons … who were not already being detained at the site at the time of this order.”

The ruling was filed late Thursday, allowing the injunction that was requested over National Environmental Policy Act violations.

Within 60 days, “and once the population attrition allows for safe implementation of this Order,” the facility must also remove “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this project,” the 82-page ruling said.

It must also remove additional lighting that was installed for the detention facility. Light pollution was a hot topic during the hearings this month.

It’s unclear how the facility will remain operational if those resources are removed.

The government must also remove temporary fencing installed to allow Native American tribe members access to the site consistent with the access they had before the facility was erected.

The defense has appealed the ruling, court records show.

Neither the Justice Department nor the Department of Homeland Security immediately responded to requests for comment. The offices of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Division of Emergency Management also didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Williams’ decision came down the same day a temporary construction freeze she previously issued expired and after a four-day hearing over environmental concerns about the facility’s location in the sensitive wetlands.

Williams had issued a temporary restraining order this month to temporarily halt operations over a lawsuit alleging the detention facility’s construction skirted environmental laws. That ruling meant no filling, paving or installation of additional infrastructure was allowed, but it didn’t affect the center’s immigration enforcement activity.

A ‘major victory’

The environmental groups that sued demanding an injunction celebrated the ruling in a joint statement late Thursday as “a major victory for Florida’s imperiled wildlife and fragile ecosystems which are threatened by the detention center.”

“Today’s decision means the facility must wind down operations in an orderly fashion within 60 days,” the statement said, saying the center posed a threat to the Everglades ecosystem, endangered species, clean water and dark night skies.

“The state and federal government paved over 20 acres of open land, built a parking lot for 1,200 cars and 3,000 detainees, placed miles of fencing and high-intensity lighting on site and moved thousands of detainees and contractors onto land in the heart of the Big Cypress National Preserve, all in flagrant violation of environmental law,” said Paul Schwiep, counsel for Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity. “We proved our case and are pleased that the court has issued a preliminary injunction against this travesty”

Thursday’s “preliminary injunction will remain in place while the lawsuit challenging the detention center is heard,” the statement said.

The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida also praised the ruling Thursday.

“This is not our first fight for our land and rights. The Miccosukee Tribe remains steadfast in our commitment to protect our ancestral lands in Big Cypress from development as a permanent detention facility,” Chairman Talbert Cypress said in a statement. “We will continue to fight to ensure that the government does not dodge its legal requirements for environmental review on seized public lands, sacred to our people.”

“When it comes to our homeland, there is no compromise,” he added.

Environmental outcry

Environmental groups and Native Americans had protested the construction of the site, which is part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, because of the Everglades’ delicate and unique ecosystem, which is home to endangered and threatened species.

Environmental groups sued in June to stop the facility, which opened in July on an airstrip in Ochopee’s Big Cypress National Preserve.

The suit said that the center was built without ecological reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act and without public notice or comment and that the government failed to comply with other state and federal statutes, including the Endangered Species Act.

The Trump administration downplayed the environmental concerns and argued that the facility was necessary because voters want the federal government to curb illegal immigration.

Schwiep, the attorney, said in court Aug. 13 that the “suggestion there is no environmental impact is absurd.”

“So why here? There are runways elsewhere. … Why the jetport in this area?” Schweip asked. “Alligator Alcatraz. A name just meant to sound ominous. I would submit, judge, this is just a public relations stunt.”

Significance to Miccosukee Tribe

On Aug. 12, the court heard from Amy Castaneda, director of water resources for the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. Castaneda said that she has worked with the tribe for 19 years and that the entrance to the jetport where the facility is built is a quarter-mile from the tribe’s land.

Asked what the Everglades land means to the Miccosukee tribe, she replied, “It’s written into the constitution to protect the Everglades because the Everglades protected them when they were hunted by the government.”

Castaneda said that for nearly two decades, there has been “minimal” activity at the jetport but that that changed after June with the construction of the detention facility.

“There’s much more activity there, vehicles going in and out, cars usually isolated on the southside of Tamiami Trail taking photos with the sign. Tankers, protesters, media, people setting up tents to sell merch for Alligator Alcatraz. Just different levels,” she said.

Castaneda said no one from the federal government, the state or any other governmental entity contacted the tribe about the construction.

She said water resources officials for the tribe have collected samples downstream from the facility to test and determine whether there has been a nutrient shift or potential health concerns.

Marcel Bozas, the director of fish and wildlife for the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, also testified Aug. 12, noting the airstrip is a couple of miles from the tribe’s sites.

While tribal members can’t access the airstrip, some trails are no longer accessible. Asked about the impact of hunting on the land, Bozas said, “Tribal members are concerned the wildlife they could be formerly hunting for are no longer in that area.” There’s also concern that medicinal plants are affected.

Judge rules ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ can stay open for now, but no further detainees or construction are allowed
Within 60 days, the facility must also remove “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles,” which calls into question how it would operate.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/judge-rules-alligator-alcatraz-florida-no-new-detainees-rcna224550

Associated Press: Judge to weigh detainees’ legal rights at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in Florida Everglades

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A federal judge will hear arguments Monday over whether detainees at a temporary immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades have been denied their legal rights.

In the second of two lawsuits challenging practices at the facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” civil rights attorneys are seeking a preliminary injunction to ensure that detainees at the facility have confidential access to their lawyers, which they say hasn’t happened. Florida officials dispute that claim.

The civil rights attorneys also want U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz to identify an immigration court that has jurisdiction over the detention center so that petitions can be filed for the detainees’ bond or release. The attorneys say that hearings for their cases have been routinely canceled in federal Florida immigration courts by judges who say they don’t have jurisdiction over the detainees held in the Everglades.

“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 Thursday during a virtual meeting to prepare for Monday’s hearing in Miami.

But before delving into the core issues of the detainees’ rights, Ruiz has said he wants to hear about whether the lawsuit was filed in the proper jurisdiction in Miami. The state and federal government defendants have argued that even though the isolated airstrip where the facility was built is owned by Miami-Dade County, Florida’s southern district is the wrong venue since the detention center is located in neighboring Collier County, which is in the state’s middle district.

The judge has hinted that some issues may pertain to one district and other issues to the other district, but said he would decide after Monday’s hearing.

“I think we should all be prepared that, before we get into any real argument about preliminary injunctive relief, that we at least spend some time working through the venue issues,” Ruiz said Thursday.

The hearing over legal access comes as another federal judge in Miami considers whether construction and operations at the facility should be halted indefinitely because federal environmental rules weren’t followed. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on Aug. 7 ordered a 14-day halt on additional construction at the site while witnesses testified at a hearing that wrapped up last week. She has said she plans to issue a ruling before the order expires later this week.

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week that his administration was preparing to open a second immigration detention facility dubbed “Deportation Depot” at a state prison in north Florida. DeSantis justified building the second detention center by saying President Donald Trump’s administration needs the additional capacity to hold and deport more immigrants.

The state of Florida has disputed claims that “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been unable to meet with their attorneys. The state’s lawyers said that since July 15, when videoconferencing started at the facility, the state has granted every request for a detainee to meet with an attorney, and in-person meetings started July 28. The first detainees arrived at the beginning of July.

But the civil rights attorneys said that even if lawyers have been scheduled to meet with their clients at the detention center, it hasn’t been in private or confidential, and it is more restrictive than at other immigration detention facilities. They said scheduling delays and an unreasonable advanced notice requirement have hindered their ability to meet with the detainees, thereby violating their constitutional rights.

Civil rights attorneys said officers are going cell-to-cell to pressure detainees into signing voluntary removal orders before they’re allowed to consult their attorneys, and some detainees have been deported even though they didn’t have final removal orders. Along with the spread of a respiratory infection and rainwater flooding their tents, the circumstances have fueled a feeling of desperation among detainees, the attorneys wrote in a court filing.

“One intellectually disabled detainee was told to sign a paper in exchange for a blanket, but was then deported subject to voluntary removal after he signed, without the ability to speak to his counsel,” the filing said.

The judge has promised a quick decision once the hearing is done.

Judge to weigh detainees’ legal rights at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in Florida Everglades
A federal judge is considering whether detainees have been denied their legal rights at a temporary immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades.

https://apnews.com/article/florida-immigration-ice-trump-alligator-alcatraz-2edf0cd03409b3526f34d4d7b33074be

Salon: Florida desensitized my family to cruel and unusual punishment

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It’s not just at Alligator Alcatraz. Horrific conditions exist throughout the Sunshine State’s prisons

In the weeks since Alligator Alcatraz opened deep within the Everglades in southern Florida, there have been mounting reports of the horrific conditions inside: Maggots in the food, sewage overflowing near beds, people having to remove fecal matter from the toilets with their bare hands due to a lack of water. To protest the conditions, detainees have launched a hunger strike, which likely continues, despite the Department of Homeland Security’s attempts to deny and suppress information about it.

Construction at Alligator Alcatraz could be halted indefinitely in the wake of a lawsuit filed by environmental groups and an Indigenous tribe arguing the detention center’s development on protected wetlands violates environmental laws. Another suit brought by the ACLU claims detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated. Florida seems undeterred. The state is planning to build a second detention center at a correctional institution that was shuttered in 2021 after numerous reports of excessive violence and abuse of inmates by guards. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is calling the facility “the deportation depot.”

This scary reality is snowballing in its brutality as President Donald Trump and his administration, Republican politicians and large swaths of the American population continue to broaden the cultural profile of who we deem dangerous enough to lock up. Several states are developing similar concentration camps, including one at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, and an Indiana facility dubbed “The Speedway Slammer.” I’m not surprised. 

I’m also not surprised that Florida is leading the way in building these facilities. The U.S. has the largest incarcerated population in the world, and Florida locks up a higher percentage of its people than any independent democratic country on earth. To date, no other state has spent as much effort collaborating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the second Trump administration. Following DeSantis’ special session on immigration in January, the Sunshine State passed laws requiring local jurisdictions to enter into agreements with ICE and offering a $1,000 bonus to local officers participating in ICE raids and operations. Immigration detention in Florida quadrupled in less than six months. As the state runs out of space, Florida jails are being used to house detainees, exacerbating overcrowded conditions and forcing people to sleep on the floor. When ICE staff opposed the plans to use Florida jails as ICE detention facilities because it would violate current federal regulations and standards, a local sheriff dismissed the claims, calling them “woke.” 

Prisoners in the Florida Department of Corrections system are often held under many of the same inhumane conditions present at Alligator Alcatraz. My uncle is one of them. 

I’ve visited him in facilities up and down the state: In detention centers; maximum security units; psych wards; private correctional institutions; facilities with barbed wire fences, search dogs and rooftops decorated with armed guards; places in towns so small the only store for miles is a Piggly Wiggly.

I don’t pretend that many of Florida’s prisoners are not guilty of the crimes they’ve been charged with, and I won’t downplay the severity of the crimes committed — my uncle’s included. Unlike the detainees held in Alligator Alcatraz, they have ostensibly been given due process, though we could argue about the justice system’s version of the right that is often applied to Black, brown and poor people. Regardless of the circumstances, however, I believe every person deserves to be treated with dignity and humanity. I don’t believe that violence and cruelty has ever nudged anyone toward a better version of themselves.

One Wednesday in May, I woke up to frantic voicemails from my mom. My uncle had been stabbed multiple times, and she wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead. It had happened two days earlier, but she’d just found out that morning from a fellow prisoner’s girlfriend. Details were spotty. My uncle was an inmate at Dade Correctional Institution, a facility in south Miami deemed the “deadliest in Florida” by the Miami Herald following an investigation into a record number of inmate deaths in 2017. An earlier investigation into the facility revealed that officers had made “sport” of tormenting mentally ill inmates, including forcing inmates into a specially rigged, scalding hot shower as punishment for unruly behavior. 

My uncle had been transferred to the facility from another prison a few years ago because Dade Correctional Institution has an Americans With Disabilities Act unit and he, a lifer, has gone deaf from decades of loud, echoing conditions. 

Since he’s deaf, he didn’t hear the man — or men — coming up on him with the knife. Despite our many requests, the Florida Department of Corrections has not gotten him a hearing aid that doesn’t beep loudly in his ears, so he prefers to stay in his own, soundless world. 

I imagined him walking into the same yard where we’ve sat for visits, thinking about how he’ll get to pet his favorite rescue dog later, the one corrections officers  bring in for training. He prefers the dogs to humans, saying they’re the only redeeming thing about the place. In my mind, he was thinking about the dog when he was surrounded by the other men. He was thinking about the dog as the knife pierced his skin, plunging into the back of his neck and then into his ear. I imagined and reimagined the scene, watching him get caught by surprise, his eyes widening at the pain. 

Did he fall to the ground? Call out for help? The woman who called my mom said four other inmates were also stabbed, and that corrections officers were involved, but it’s impossible to verify. 

There are so many questions. Did the officers provide the knife? Join in on the stabbing? Simply look the other way?

My mom and siblings and I called and emailed each of the prison’s classification officers, coordinators and wardens. This was not the first time in my uncle’s 30-year incarceration that we’ve had to hound the Florida Department of Corrections for answers about his well-being. It was not the first time we’ve received calls from another inmate’s girlfriend or relative about my uncle. There was the time, a few years ago at another facility, when he was taken to the medical unit for lesions in his stomach. He was kept on a gurney in a hallway for days without treatment. He was in so much pain he thought he might die, so he had a friend get in touch with us to let us know. 

Then, like now, we called and tried to get information from the staff and were given the run around. The person with answers was always on break. The warden was never available. We were treated like nuisances for caring. They informed me I was not on “the list” to receive information, a bold-faced lie. I pleaded with anyone I could get on the line. They gave me one-word answers and told me to calm down in an almost bored tone. I cried, begging them to have some compassion, to imagine it was their loved one who was hurt. 

I canceled a few work calls. Without thinking much about it, I texted my co-worker and told her my uncle was stabbed. She expressed alarm and concern. I kept calling, relaying information to my mom and siblings. I reached out to the media, including the writer who investigated Dade Correctional Institution years ago. She recommended that I request copies of my uncle’s inmate file, which is public record, and any incident reports involving his name. I did this and got nothing. I tried again — still, nothing. Unfortunately, none of this was newsworthy, and my sources inside were not considered credible, so the reporters I spoke with didn’t have much to go on. I reached out to an advocacy group and received a reply three months later stating that, due to a lack of resources and too much demand, they could not help me.

A coordinator at the prison eventually told us my uncle was alive, that he had received medical treatment and was being held in solitary confinement for his safety. We were given nothing else. When I asked why we weren’t notified of the incident, I was told that it’s the inmate’s responsibility to notify loved ones — as if he could call us after being stabbed multiple times, and while he was in solitary confinement with a disability that makes it difficult to communicate by phone. 

Several weeks later, my uncle was transferred to another facility at the opposite end of the state. He had 28-day-old sutures he contemplated removing himself because they itched so badly. My fury was exhausting. My family and I stopped talking about the incident and went back to business as usual, putting money on his commissary, sending him books and figuring out how to get messages to him via the new facility’s byzantine communications systems. I dropped any hope of trying to get information about what happened, even from my uncle, who, speaking on a recorded line, just said, “Shit happens in here.” The upside, for him: At least the new facility has air conditioning.

The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, including the denial of necessary medical care for inmates. But thanks to the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, it’s incredibly challenging for inmates to bring suits against this treatment, and just about 1% of all cases actually win. One ongoing lawsuit against Dade Correctional Institution concerns the lack of air conditioning that led to four inmates dying last year in Miami, where heat indexes can rise up to 115 degrees Fahrenheit. The Florida Department of Corrections sought to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the deaths were not caused by heat, but a federal judge allowed the lawsuit to proceed. The majority of Florida’s prison housing units are not air-conditioned.

I imagine the detainees in Alligator Alcatraz without adequate shelter or air conditioning in the middle of hurricane season in a South Florida swamp. I think of the cavalier way Republican lawmakers have denied claims about the detention camp’s conditions. I think of Isidro Perez, the 75-year-old Cuban man who died in ICE custody at the Krome Detention Center in Miami in July. I think of the elderly prisoner in a wheelchair who begged for help in the heat at Dade Correctional Institution and died after being refused medical attention. I think of all the lives we have lost to the normalization of cruel punishment, and how many more there are to lose. 

Over the last 50 years, our bureaucratic desensitization to incarceration has grown largely unchecked. Prisons are built quietly, out of sight from the public. Visiting my uncle, regardless of where he is, requires a long drive, countless forms and hours waiting, adherence to seemingly arbitrary rules that differ from place to place and can change at any moment without notice. The point is isolation, to forget about these people. To systematically dehumanize them — first prisoners, then immigrants — and to watch as the public starts to believe they don’t deserve to be treated like humans.

Florida desensitized my family to cruel and unusual punishment
It’s not just at Alligator Alcatraz. Horrific conditions exist throughout the Sunshine State’s prisons

https://www.salon.com/2025/08/17/florida-desensitized-my-family-to-cruel-and-unusual-punishment

Guardian: ‘Petri dish for disease’: attorney raises alarm of possible Covid outbreak at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

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A respiratory disease is running rampant through Florida immigration jail, according to attorney of a detained person

An outbreak of a respiratory disease, possibly Covid-19, is running rampant through the remote Florida immigration jail known as “Alligator Alcatraz”, according to the attorney of an infected detainee removed from the camp last week.

Eric Lee said he was told by his client Luis Manuel Rivas Velásquez that conditions at the facility had deteriorated significantly since Thursday as more migrants held there by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency experienced symptoms.

Lee said authorities removed Rivas Velásquez, a 38-year-old Venezuelan man, from the camp after he was diagnosed in a hospital visit last week, then secretly taken to a similar facility in Texas.

Protesters at the gates of the jail in the heart of the Florida Everglades have recorded a number of instances of ambulances arriving and leaving.

Lee said the hastily erected tented camp, which Democratic lawmakers have decried for holding thousands of undocumented detainees in cages as they await deportation, is a “petri dish for disease”.

He added: “Based on what multiple detainees have told me, in the last 72 to 100 hours, there is some respiratory disease which has made the majority, or I would even say vast majority of detainees, sick in some form.

“There are people who are losing breath. There are people who are walking around coughing on one another. Their requests for masks from the guards are denied, and they only are allowed to shower once or maybe twice a week.

“I said to Luis, ‘pass the phone. Let me hear it from somebody else. I just want to make sure that people’s stories are straight.’ And unfortunately they very much are.”

The development follows a claim by a woman, a state licensed corrections officer, who said she contracted Covid-19 after working at the camp in unsanitary conditions for about a week last month, and was subsequently fired.

“We had to use the porta-johns. We didn’t have hot water half the time. Our bathrooms were backed up,” the woman told NBC6 News after being granted anonymity to discuss conditions there.

“[The detainees] have no sunlight. There’s no clock in there. They don’t even know what time of the day it is. The bathrooms are backed up because so many people [are] using them.”

The Florida department of emergency management, which is responsible for operations at the jail, did not immediately respond to a request from the Guardian for comment.

In a statement to the Miami New Times, Stephanie Hartman, a department spokesperson, did not answer questions about a possible outbreak, but insisted: “Detainees have access to a 24/7, fully staffed medical facility with a pharmacy on site.”

Lee said Rivas Velásquez told him in a phone call that he pleaded for medical attention for 48 hours after contracting breathing difficulties, and eventually collapsed inside the metal cage in which he and dozens of other inmates were being held.

He said his client was taken to Miami’s Kendall regional medical center, where he was diagnosed with a respiratory infection, then returned only briefly to the Everglades camp before disappearing for three days. Lee said Rivas Velásquez called on Sunday from a new detention camp in El Paso, Texas.

“He said when he was returned to the Alcatraz facility he asked the guards to provide his medical records and they said they would not do that,” Lee said.

“The guards came to his bed, opened his pillow, took all the poetry and letters he’d been writing, and all the notes he’d been taking about his experiences, and told him he’s no longer allowed to write.”

Apart from the brief call from Texas, Lee said he had no further information about his client’s wellbeing.

“I haven’t heard from him for two days now. I have no idea how he’s doing or frankly whether he’s alive or not. It’s hard to wage a legal fight when you don’t even have access to your client,” he said.

If the outbreak is Covid, Lee added, it would have consequences beyond Alligator Alcatraz.

“The disease doesn’t recognize the prison walls and guards are going to get sick. They’ll give it to their kids, it’s going to get into the Miami school system, people are going to get sick and die as a result of the conditions that are in this facility,” he said.

‘Petri dish for disease’: attorney raises alarm of possible Covid outbreak at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
A respiratory disease is running rampant through Florida immigration jail, according to attorney of a detained person

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/12/attorney-covid-outbreak-alligator-alcatraz

Associated Press: Some Florida officers are continuing to charge people under halted immigration law

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Some law enforcement officers are continuing to charge people under a Florida law that bans people living in the U.S. illegally from entering the state, even though a federal judge has halted enforcement of the law while it’s challenged in court.

Two more people were arrested and charged under the law in July, according to a report Florida’s attorney general is required to file as punishment for defying the judge’s ruling.

Both men were arrested by a sheriff’s officer in Sarasota County, located on the state’s southwest coast. The charges came months after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami first halted enforcement of the state statute, which makes it a misdemeanor for people who are in the U.S. without legal permission to enter Florida by eluding immigration officials.

As punishment for flouting her order and being found in civil contempt, the judge required Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier to file bimonthly reports about whether any arrests, detentions or law enforcement actions have been made under the law.

In separate incidents on July 3 and July 28, the men were each charged with driving without a valid license and offenses related to driving under the influence of alcohol. The State Attorney’s Office for the 12th Judicial Circuit dismissed the illegal entry charges against them, and requested that the sheriff’s office advice the arresting officer of the court’s order halting enforcement of the law, according to the status report.

A spokesperson for Uthmeier did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a separate court filing, immigrants’ rights advocates who filed the lawsuit questioned whether state officials are using the blocked law to justify holding detainees at an isolated immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Attorneys for the advocates provided the court an email apparently sent by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee to the offices of members of Congress, stating that Florida officials are relying on legal authority granted by the blocked law.

In a separate court filing, immigrants’ rights advocates who filed the lawsuit questioned whether state officials are using the blocked law to justify holding detainees at an isolated immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Attorneys for the advocates provided the court an email apparently sent by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee to the offices of members of Congress, stating that Florida officials are relying on legal authority granted by the blocked law.

Some Florida officers are continuing to charge people under halted immigration law
Some law enforcement officers are continuing to charge people under a Florida law that bans people living in the U.S. illegally from entering the state, even though a federal judge has halted enforcement of the law while it’s challenged in court.

https://apnews.com/article/florida-immigration-law-enforcement-lawsuit-uthmeier-59c5d6a4e5de52272a90273e11681386

Independent: More than 100 human rights abuses discovered in immigration detention since Trump took office, senate probe says

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Report from Senator Jon Ossoff uncovers dozens of allegations, including medical mistreatment of children women and children

An investigation from the office of Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff uncovered more than 500 allegations of human rights abuses in immigration detention facilities, including more than a two dozen reports involving children and pregnant women and more than 40 instances of physical and sexual abuse.

The senator launched an investigation into conditions inside the nation’s sprawling network of immigration detention facilities after Donald Trump took office in January.

A subsequent report, first published by NBC News on Tuesday, identified 510 “credible reports” of abuse inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, federal prisons, local jails and military bases, including Guantanamo Bay, and on deportation flights.

“Credibly reported or confirmed events to date include deaths in custody, physical and sexual abuse, mistreatment of pregnant women, mistreatment of children, inadequate medical care, overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions, inadequate food or water, exposure to extreme temperatures, denial of access to attorneys, and family separations,” according to the report.

Those events include 41 allegations of physical or sexual abuse, including an alleged incident in El Paso where a detainee was “slammed against the ground, handcuffed, and taken outside” for “stepping out of line in the dining hall.”

The report also uncovered two 911 calls from a California facility referencing sexual assaults or threats of sexual assaults. At a facility in Texas, at least four emergency calls since January have reportedly referenced sexual abuse, the report found.

When a group of detainees in Miami flooded a toilet in protest of poor conditions, officers reportedly threw flash-bang grenades into the room and “shot at the men with what appeared to be pellets or rubber bullets,” according to the report. The detainees were then handcuffed with zip-ties that cut into their wrists when detainees requested food, water and medication, the report says.

The senator’s office uncovered at least 14 reports alleging pregnant women were mistreated in Homeland Security custody, “including not receiving adequate medical care and timely checkups, not receiving urgent care when needed, being denied snacks and adequate meals, and being forced to sleep on the floor due to overcrowding,” according to the report.

A pregnant woman’s partner in custody in Georgia had reported to the senator’s office that she had bled for days before staff took her to a hospital.

Once she was there, “she was reportedly left in a room, alone, to miscarry without water or medical assistance, for over 24 hours,” according to the report. According to documents obtained by NBC News, the woman received a follow-up check-up on April 9, 11 days after she miscarried.

In another case, a pregnant detainee was reportedly told to “just drink water” after requesting medical attention.

Attorneys for other detainees told the senator’s office that their pregnant clients have been forced to wait “weeks” to see a doctor while in custody.

The senator’s office also collected 18 reports involving children, including U.S. citizens, some as young as two years old.

Three of those children reportedly experienced “severe medical issues” while in detention and were denied adequate medical treatment, according to the report.

In another case, an attorney reported that a U.S. citizen child with severe medical issues was hospitalized three times while in custody with her non-citizen mother. According to the report, when the young girl began vomiting blood, the mother begged for medical attention, to which an officer reportedly told her to “just give the girl a cracker.”

A citizen child recovering from brain surgery was reportedly denied access to follow-up care, a case that was publicly reported earlier this year. She faces continued brain swelling and speech and mobility difficulties, according to the senator’s report.

Another previously reported case involving a four-year-old cancer patient is also included in the senator’s report.

“Regardless of our views on immigration policy, the American people do not support the abuse of detainees and prisoners … it’s more important than ever to shine a light on what’s happening behind bars and barbed wire, especially and most shockingly to children,” Ossoff said in a statement shared with The Independent.

Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told NBC News that “any claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false.”

Detainees in ICE custody are provided with “proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members,” she said.

“Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE,” she told NBC.

The Independent has requested additional comment from Ossoff’s office and Homeland Security.

Ossoff’s report follows nearly eight months of the president’s vast anti-immigration agenda and mass deportation machine, set to receive tens of billions of dollars over the next decade to radically expand detention capacity and the number of ICE agents working to remove people from the country.

Lawsuits and reports from immigration advocates and attorneys have alleged similarly brutal conditions in facilities in California, Texas, Louisiana, New Jersey, Florida and New York, where detainees have reported food shortages, illness and denial of access to legal counsel.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/ice-detention-human-rights-jon-ossoff-report-b2802585.html

Sacremento Bee: Judge Delivers Blow to New Detention Center

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District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz has ordered Florida officials to submit all contracts and agreements regarding the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center. The order followed a civil rights lawsuit alleging constitutional violations against detainees, and aims to clarify legal authority and oversight at the facility. Immigration attorneys claimed detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz” are held without charges, denied legal access, and have had bond hearings canceled.

Ruiz stated, “Federal and state officials in Florida must produce agreements showing which government agency or private contractor has legal authority to detain people or perform immigration officer roles at ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ the immigration detention facility in the Everglades.”

Ruiz added, “Officials must provide by Thursday all written agreements and contracts showing who has legal custody of the hundreds of detainees at the facility that was hastily constructed more than a month ago on an isolated airstrip in South Florida’s Everglades wilderness.”

…

The facility’s oversight has been unclear since its July opening. The Archdiocese of Miami has confirmed it conducted the first Mass at the detention center following negotiations for pastoral care for the detainees.

Ruiz stated, “We need to get to the bottom of the interplay between the federal and state authorities on who’s running this thing.”

Judge Delivers Blow to New Detention Center
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/judge-delivers-blow-to-new-detention-center/ss-AA1Kdyyu

CBS News: Kristi Noem says “Alligator Alcatraz” to be model for ICE state-run detention centers

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Perhaps coming soon to Arizona, Nebraska and Louisiana?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says “Alligator Alcatraz” will serve as a model for state-run migrant detention centers, and she told CBS News in an interview that she hopes to launch a handful of similar detention centers in multiple airports and jails across the country, in the coming months. Potential sites are already under consideration in Arizona, Nebraska and Louisiana. 

“The locations we’re looking at are right by airport runways that will help give us an efficiency that we’ve never had before,” Noem said, adding that she’s appealed directly to governors and state leaders nationwide to gauge their interest in contributing to the Trump administration’s program to detain and deport more unauthorized migrants. 

“Most of them are interested,” Noem said, adding that in states that support President Trump’s mission of securing the southern border, “many of them have facilities that may be empty or underutilized.”

The Department of Homeland Security strategy builds on the opening of a 3,000-bed immigration detention center at a jetport in South Florida last month. Dubbed Alligator Alcatraz by state and federal officials, the makeshift facility will cost an estimated $450 million to operate in its first year. Up and running in just 8 days, the tents and trailers at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport are surrounded by 39 square miles of isolated swampland, boasting treacherous terrain and wildlife  

Last month, President Trump toured the facility, seeing rows of bunk beds lined up behind chain fences and encircled by razor wire. Mr. Trump joked to reporters there that “we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison.” Asked if the temporary facility would be a model of what’s to come, the president said he’d like to see similar operations in “many states.”

The Arizona’s governor’s office told CBS News it has not been approached about a state-run facility. 

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen’s office said in a statement that his administration “continues to be in communication with federal partners on how Nebraska can best assist in these efforts,” but added that for now, “it is premature to comment” and the governor would “make details public at the appropriate time.”

For her part, Noem called the Alligator Alcatraz model “much better” than the current detention prototype, which largely contracts out its Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention capacity to for-profit prison companies and county jails. ICE is an agency that falls under DHS. This model relies on intergovernmental service agreements (IGSAs) negotiated and signed between ICE and individual localities. She called the Florida facility — with an eventual price tag of $245 per inmate bed, per night, according to DHS officials — a cost-effective option. “Obviously it was much less per-bed cost than what some of the previous contracts under the Department of Homeland Security were.”

According to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, the estimated average daily cost of detaining an adult migrant in fiscal year 2024 was about $165, though the actual cost of detention typically varies based on region, length of stay and facility type.

Still, Noem argued that the new venues, all with close proximity to airports or runways, will help ICE to cut costs by “facilitating quick turnarounds.” 

“They’re all strategically designed to make sure that people are in beds for less days,” Noem said, adding that some of the facilities being considered are still undergoing vetting by the department and subject to ongoing negotiations. “It can be much more efficient once they get their hearings, due process, paperwork.”

Unlike Alligator Alcatraz, which uses funds from a shelter, food and transportation program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Noem said the state-based initiative will tap into a new $45 billion funding pool for ICE prompted by President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, which was signed into law last month. The pool of money is allocated specifically to the expansion of ICE’s detention network and will nearly double the agency’s bedspace capacity of 61,000 beds, based on cost analysis. As of Saturday, ICE was holding just over 57,000 individuals in its detention network in more than 150 facilities nationwide.

Noem — who has implemented a department-wide policy across DHS of personally approving each and every contract and grant over $100,000 — said keeping ICE detention contracts to a duration of under five years is now “the model we’ve pushed for.” For instance, she added, Alligator Alcatraz is a one-year contract that can be renewed. 

“For me personally, the question that I’ve asked of every one of these contracts is, why are we signing 15-year deals?” Noem said. “I have to look at our mission. If we’re still building out and processing 100,000 detention beds 15 years from now, then we didn’t do our job.”

The new policy is a departure from earlier agreements made under the Trump administration. In February, ICE signed a 15-year, $1 billion deal with the GEO Group, a private prison company, to reopen Delaney Hall, a two-story, 1,000-bed facility that ranks among the largest detention centers in the Northeast.

Still, Noem said she doesn’t feel the U.S. is moving away from a private detention model. “I mean, these are competitive contracts,” she said. “I want everybody to be at the table, giving us solutions. I just want them to give us a contract that actually does the job — a contract that doesn’t put more money in their pockets while keeping people in detention beds just for the sake of that contract.”

But Alligator Alcatraz has also come under fire from attorneys claiming that both the Trump and DeSantis administrations are holding detainees without charge or access to immigration courts, violating their constitutional rights. Attorneys argued in a legal filing last month that unauthorized migrants held at the Florida-run site have no legal recourse to challenge their detention. 

Lawyers and experts have also called into question the very legality of a state-run immigration detention center, given the federal government’s authority over immigration enforcement. Opening the detention center in the Everglades under Florida’s emergency state powers marked a departure from the federal government’s role of housing migrant detainees, an option typically reserved for those who’ve recently entered the country illegally or those with criminal convictions. 

A U.S. district judge last week ordered state and federal officials to provide a copy of the agreement showing “who’s running the show” at the Everglades immigrant-detention center. 

“Florida does not have the legal authority to detain undocumented immigrants in the absence of a contract with ICE,” said Kevin Landy, the director of detention policy and planning for ICE under President Barack Obama. “A state government can’t do that.” 

Detainees held at Alligator Alcatraz have also claimed unsanitary and inhumane conditions, including food with maggots, denial of religious rights and limited access to both legal assistance and water. Florida officials have denied the accusations. 

Still, tucked away in the Florida Everglades 45 miles west of Miami, if its location sounds treacherous, Noem concedes, that’s kind of the point. “There definitely is a message that it sends,” the secretary said. “President Trump wants people to know if you are a violent criminal and you’re in this country illegally, there will be consequences.”

Noem offered that deterrence is an effective strategy based on U.S. gathered intelligence “from three letter agencies, from other intelligence officials throughout the federal government and in a lot of the Latin American and South American countries” that indicates “overwhelmingly, what encourages people to go back home voluntarily is the consequences.”

“They see the laws being enforced in the United States,” Noem said. “They know when they are here illegally and if they are detained, they’ll be removed. They see that they may never get the chance to come back to America. And they’re voluntarily coming home.”

The DHS secretary met with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in March. “One of the questions I asked President Scheinbaum when I was in Mexico is, ‘Do you have any idea how many people may have come back to Mexico that we may not know about,'” Noem said. 

“[Sheinbaum] said 500,000 to 600,000 people have come back to Mexico voluntarily since President Trump’s been in office,” Noem continued, explaining that the Mexican president believes her reluctant citizens fear losing the chance to return to the U.S. on a visa or work program.

It’s a datapoint she solicits from many of the foreign leaders she meets with, including Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, who shared a 90-minute lunch with the DHS secretary in Quito, last Thursday. “I asked him the same question,” Noem recalled. “He doesn’t have as many illegal immigrants in the United States as in Mexico and Venezuela, but he said he thinks over 100,000 of his citizens have come back to Ecuador. And that’s a huge number.” 

Noem reasoned that her Ecuadorian counterpart’s rough estimate is based on two factors — a strengthening Ecuadorian economy and a DHS television campaign launched across Latin and South America, warning prospective migrants not to enter or remain in the U.S. illegally. 

“He was very proud of the fact that he’s doing better with his economy. So there’s jobs,” Noem recounted. “But he said, you know, our ads are running in Ecuador. We’re telling people that, if you have family in the United States that are there illegally, it’s time to come home.”

Kristi Noem says “Alligator Alcatraz” to be model for ICE state-run detention centers
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says possible new locations include Arizona, Nebraska and Louisiana.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alligator-alcatraz-model-kristi-noem-homeland-security