Gaetano Mirabella Costa and Fernando Artese plead for help after detention in Florida
The families of two Italians held in President Trump’s “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention centre have denounced the harsh conditions of their incarceration in Florida and appealed to the Italian authorities for help to get them out.
“We’re in cages like chickens, 32 people with three open toilets, everyone can see everything,” Gaetano Mirabella Costa, 45, told Italian state television in a telephone interview from the prison. “I don’t know what I’m accused of and I can’t speak with a lawyer or even a judge. Can the Italian authorities please help me to get out of this nightmare?”
The Italian, who was born in Taormina, Sicily, and had been living in the US for ten years, had recently served a short prison sentence for assault, drug possession and domestic violence and was transferred to the new detention centre on July 9.
His mother, Rosanna Vitale, said her son had been taken to court with his feet and hands shackled, “like a dog”. The only positive thing was that he was allowed to queue for a telephone to make collect calls from the prison, she said.
“The situation is very tough,” she added. “He said, ‘Mum, I haven’t seen the sun for ten days.’ We still haven’t been contacted by anyone to deal with this situation but we will do everything possible to get him back — we hope soon.”
Another Italian, Fernando Artese, 63, had been living in Florida and overstayed a 90-day visa by almost ten years. He was transferred to the prison at Dade-Collier, in the Everglades swamps, after being stopped by police on June 25.
In March Artese, who has joint Italian and Argentinian nationality, had been fined for driving without a licence. His family said he missed his traffic court date because he feared being detained.
Artese’s family had joined him in 2018 — his wife, Monica Riveira, 62, came on a student visa and his teenage daughter, Carla, legally accompanied her. They had been living in the Florida city of Hialeah, where Artese ran a company installing cameras, and were stopped while attempting to leave the country by driving their mobile home to Argentina.
“This is a concentration camp. They treat us like criminals — it’s a pursuit of humiliation,” Artese told the Tampa Bay Times in a phone interview. “We’re all workers and people fighting for our families.”
Carla Artese, 19, has raised more than $7,000 towards a target of $10,000 on an appeal for her father on the GoFundMe website.
“This year, we were trying to leave the USA, and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] got him and sent him to Alligator Alcatraz, where they treat them like criminals and [they] have no rights,” she said in the appeal. “They haven’t given him any information about his case or any right to an attorney. Not to mention, they haven’t added him to the system yet, so he doesn’t even appear like an inmate anywhere.”
She said her father wanted “to self-deport when they let him”, adding: “He is a hard worker who only wanted to leave the country with his family after paying taxes and working hard the whole time he’s been here!”
Carla told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera her father was lucky because he had previously been detained in another institution and that had given his family the chance to bring him his medicines. “Many don’t have medicine and there’s not much food,” she said. “They can’t sleep at night because the lights are on 24 hours a day. They can’t see the sun, they can’t go outside.”
The migrant detention centre, which has a capacity of 3,000, was built within weeks under the direction of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, using emergency powers. Trump visited a few weeks ago and joked that escaping prisoners would have to run in zig-zag lines to avoid the local alligators.
Opposition politicians have criticised Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, for allegedly prioritising her friendship with Trump over the rights of her imprisoned compatriots. “Will the government of patriots continue to play majordomo to Trump or does it intend to defend the rights of an Italian citizen?” asked Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister.
Angelo Bonelli, an MP with the Green and Left Alliance, said the government was always ready to curry favour with Washington. “It remains silent even in the face of an obvious violation of human rights,” he said. “Patriots in words, vassals in reality.”
https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/what-is-alligator-alcatraz-italians-gz2gcqrbd