Abusive Practices at Three Florida Immigration Detention Centers Since January 2025

Among the flurry of immigration-related executive orders marking the second presidential administration of Donald Trump is Executive Order 14159, establishing the policy of detaining individuals apprehended on suspicion of violating immigration laws for the duration of their removal proceedings “to the extent permitted by law.” President Trump’s call for mass deportations was matched by a surge in immigration detention nationally. In line with this policy, Trump issued dozens of other immigration-related executive orders and executive actions and signed into law the Laken Riley Act as part of a broader rollback of immigrants’ rights in the United States.

Within a month of the inauguration, the number of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began increasing. Throughout 2024, an average of 37,500 people were detained in immigration detention in the US per day.[1] As of June 20, 2025, on any given day, over 56,000 people were in detention across the country, 40 percent more than in June 2024, and the highest detention population in the history of US immigration detention. As of June 15, immigration detention numbers were at an average of 56,400 per day, and nearly 72 percent of individuals detained had no criminal history.

Between January and June 2025, thousands were held in immigration detention at the Krome North Service Processing Center (Krome), the Broward Transitional Center (BTC), and the Federal Detention Center (FDC), in Florida, under conditions that flagrantly violate international human rights standards and the United States government’s own immigration detention standards. By March, the number of people in immigration detention at Krome had increased 249 percent from the levels before the January inauguration. At times in March, the facility detained more than three times its operational capacity of inmates. As of June 20, 2025, the number of people in immigration detention at the three facilities was at 111 percent from the levels before the inauguration.

The change was qualitative as well as quantitative. Detainees in three Florida facilities told Human Rights Watch that ICE detention officers and private contractor guards treated them in a degrading and dehumanizing manner. Some were detained shackled for prolonged periods on buses without food, water, or functioning toilets; there was extreme overcrowding in freezing holding cells where detainees were forced to sleep on cold concrete floors under constant fluorescent lighting; and many were denied access to basic hygiene and medical care.

Five years ago, in April 2020, Human Rights Watch, together with the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Justice Center, reported on conditions in immigration detention under the first Trump administration. Human Rights Watch, along with other governmental and nongovernmental expert and oversight bodies, have carried out numerous investigations of immigration detention conditions in the United States. This report reveals that while the second Trump administration is using similar abusive practices, their impacts are exacerbated due to severe overcrowding caused by new state and local policies, including in Florida, where this report is focused. While these latest findings in Florida inform some of the policy recommendations in this report, the recommendations are also grounded in these years of investigations and findings.

This report finds that staff at the three detention facilities researchers examined subjected detained individuals to dangerously substandard medical care, overcrowding, abusive treatment, and restrictions on access to legal and psychosocial support. Officers denied detainees critical medication and detained some incommunicado in solitary confinement as an apparent punishment for seeking mental health care. Facility officers returned some detainees to detention directly from hospital stays with no follow-up treatment. They detained others in solitary confinement or transferred them without notice, disrupting legal representation. They forced them to sleep on cold concrete floors without bedding and gave them food which was sometimes substandard, and in many instances ignored their medical requirements. Some officers treated detainees in dehumanizing ways.

These findings match those of an April 2025 submission by Americans for Immigrant Justice (AIJ) to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which documented severe and systemic human rights violations at Krome. Combined with years of investigations by Human Rights Watch and other independent experts and groups in the US, they paint a picture of an immigration detention system that degrades, intimidates, and punishes immigrants.

The report is based on interviews with eleven currently and recently detained individuals, some of which took place at Krome and BTC; family members of seven detainees; and 14 immigration lawyers, as well as data analysis. Two of the facilities, Krome and BTC, are operated by private contractors under ICE oversight. On May 20, 2025 and again on June 11, 2025, Human Rights Watch sent letters to the heads of all three prison facilities, the acting director of ICE, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the heads of the two companies managing Krome and BTC, with a summary of our findings and questions. At the time of publication, Human Rights Watch had only received one response from Akima Global Services, LLC (Akima), the company that runs Krome, stating “we cannot comment publicly on the specifics of our engagement.”

One woman described arriving at Krome–a facility that typically only holds men–late at night on January 28. Officers then confined her for days with dozens of other women without bedding or privacy, in a cell normally used only during incarceration intake procedures. “There was only one toilet, and it was covered in feces,” she said. “We begged the officers to let us clean it, but they just said sarcastically, ‘Housekeeping will come soon.’ No one ever came.”

A man recalled the frigid conditions in the intake cell where he was detained: “They turned up the air conditioning… You could not fall asleep because it was so cold. I thought I was going to experience hypothermia.”

This report documents serious violations of medical standards. Detention facility staff routinely denied individuals with diabetes, asthma, kidney conditions, and chronic pain their prescribed medications and access to doctors. In one case at Krome, a woman with gallstones began vomiting and lost consciousness after being denied care for several days. Officers returned her to the same cell after emergency surgery to remove her gallbladder—still without medication.

It is concerning that women were held for intake processing that could take days or even weeks at a facility primarily and historically used to detain men. Officers at Krome used the facility’s role as a men’s detention center to justify denying women held there access to medical care and appropriate sanitation conditions.

Authorities transferred a man with chronic illnesses from FDC to BTC without the prescription medication he needed daily, despite his having repeatedly reminded staff of his medical record. After he collapsed and was hospitalized, his family discovered he had been registered at the hospital under a false name. He was returned to detention in shackles.

This substandard medical care may have been linked to two deaths, one at Krome and one at BTC.

Staff were dismissive or abusive even when detainees were undergoing a visibly obvious medical crisis. For example, staff ignored a detained immigrant who began coughing blood in a crowded holding cell for hours. In that case, unrest ensued, and a Disturbance Control Team stormed the cell, forcing the men in it to lie face down on the wet, dirty floor while officers zip-tied their hands behind their backs. A detainee said he heard an officer order the cell’s CCTV camera feed to be turned off. Another detainee said a team member slapped him while shouting, “Shut the f*ck up.”

During another incident, officers made men eat while shackled with their hands behind their backs after forcing the group to wait hours for lunch: “We had to bend over and eat off the chairs with our mouths, like dogs,” one man said.

Women and men alike reported that seeking help—especially mental health support—could lead to punishment and retaliation. At BTC, authorities put detainees who complained of emotional distress in solitary confinement for weeks, creating a chilling effect. One woman said: “If you ask for help, they isolate you. If you cry, they might take you away for two weeks. So, people stay silent.”

With the exclusion of trips to a prison library at Krome, and painting sessions at BTC, authorities provided no educational or vocational activities whatsoever.

Lockdowns—during which staff denied detained people access to medical staff and basic recreation—were sometimes imposed only because the facility was short-staffed. Staff denied individuals access to medical staff and the ability to go outdoors at all, sometimes for days at a time. Detention center lockdowns, transfers without notice, and limited phone privileges have disrupted people’s ability to communicate with their families and their lawyers, hindering their ability to prepare their cases and exacerbating ongoing mental health concerns.

The treatment of detainees by staff at the three detention facilities appears to be in clear violation of ICE’s own standards, including the 2011 Performance-Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS) governing Krome and BTC, and the 2019 National Detention Standards (NDS) governing the detention of immigrants at FDC. Conditions in the centers also violated US obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention Against Torture (CAT), and key standards articulated under the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Mandela Rules).

The Trump administration’s one-track immigration policy, singularly focused on mass deportations will continue to send more people into immigration detention facilities that do not have the capacity to hold them and will only worsen the conditions described in this report.

There is a growing number of agreements—223—between Florida’s local law enforcement and ICE related to detention and/or deportation of immigrants that come to the attention of, or are in custody of local law enforcement, but are non-citizens. These are known as 287(g) agreements, authorized by Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). These agreements, combined with Florida’s state-level policies regarding immigration enforcement, and the broad application of federal mandatory detention policies, have led to a dramatic increase in arrests and detentions. Florida has, by large measure, the highest proportion of law enforcement agencies enrolled in the program of any state. Over 76 percent of Florida’s agencies have signed an agreement. In the next ranked state, Wyoming, only 11 percent of agencies have signed up.[2]

Under a January 2025 national law, the Laken Riley Act, an immigrant charged with any one of a broad range of criminal offenses, including theft and shoplifting, is subject to mandatory detention by ICE.

Other actions taken since January 2025 at the national level include designating some immigrants as “enemy aliens” and deporting them to incommunicado detention and abusive conditions in El Salvador; removing migrants and asylum seekers to countries like Panama and Costa Rica, of which they are not nationals, while denying them any opportunity to claim asylum; targeting birthright citizenship; expanding the use of rapid-fire “expedited removal” procedures (allowing the entry of removal orders without procedural guarantees such as the right to counsel, to appear before a judge, to present evidence, or to appeal); terminating parole and temporary protected status for people from various countries with widespread human rights violations, such as Venezuela, Haiti, and Afghanistan; and ending refugee admissions entirely except for South Africans of Afrikaner ethnicity or other racial minorities, under a policy “justified” by fear of future persecution.

Layered on top of all of this is the Trump administration’s decision to rescind the “sensitive locations” memo that previously protected immigrants from enforcement actions when at schools, medical clinics, churches and courts, putting even more people at risk of detention.

One person interviewed for this report was detained after attending a scheduled appointment with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and another was detained while at an appointment with ICE. An activist who provides support to immigrants outside the ICE office in Miramar, Florida every Wednesday said people are increasingly skipping their appointments out of fear they will be arrested on the spot. “I’ve seen cars gathering dust in the parking lot,” she said, “because people went inside for an appointment and never came out.”

The result of all of these federal and state developments is an increasing climate of fear in which immigrants—many with no criminal conviction—avoid police, immigration appointments, and even hospitals, places of worship, and schools for fear of being detained and deported. Avoiding these institutions and services has a profound effect on daily life and potentially on the prospects of that individual and their family members for the future. Putting people in a position that they are too fearful to seek needed medical care and practice their religion is a violation of basic human rights.

A man from Colombia, detained while he was at someone else’s home and detained for 63 days but never accused of any crime, said:

We want to be in the United States. It seems like a great country to us. It seems like a country of many opportunities but from the bottom of my heart, I tell you that all of this has been poorly handled through a campaign of hate… You see it inside immigration detention—the guards treat you like garbage. Even if they speak Spanish, they pretend not to understand. It’s like psychological abuse… you feel like your life is over.

To address the abuses documented in this report, Human Rights Watch calls on the United States government to end the use of 287(g) agreements that entwine local law enforcement and immigration enforcement and in doing so erode community trust and public safety.

ICE, its contractors, and local governments should use immigration detention only as a last resort and increase rights-respecting case management programs, such as alternatives to detention. ICE and its contractors should also end the use of solitary confinement and ensure timely medical and mental health care. To ensure that conditions for detained immigrants comply with the United States’ own standards, staff in detention facilities should be trained in human rights and trauma-informed care. Facilities should adopt policies that guarantee access to legal counsel, and that prioritize safety, dignity, and due process for all individuals in custody. Detention facilities should also meet international and national standards, and independent oversight is urgently needed to investigate abuses and enforce accountability.

“You Feel Like Your Life is Over”

The 92-page report, “‘You Feel Like Your Life is Over’: Abusive Practices at Three Florida Immigration Detention Centers Since January 2025,” documents that people detained at Krome North Service Processing Center (Krome), Broward Transitional Center (BTC), and the Federal Detention Center (FDC) in Miami have been held in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions and subjected to degrading treatment, and have not been given access to prompt and adequate medical care. The groups also reported the experiences of 17 immigrants in at the three detention facilities since January 20.

https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/07/21/you-feel-like-your-life-is-over/abusive-practices-at-three-florida-immigration