Legal advocates and relatives of immigrant detainees held in Florida’s notorious Alligator Alcatraz are demanding the closure of the state-run facility, as allegations of human rights violations there and at other immigration detention centers mount.
Detainees in Alligator Alcatraz, a new facility in the Everglades, described what they called torturous conditions in cage-like units full of mosquitoes, where fluorescent lights shine bright on them at all times. Detainees here also called attention to unsanitary conditions, as well as lack of food and reliable medical treatment for their chronic conditions.
“Detention conditions are unlivable,” said Tessa Petit, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, during a news conference Tuesday outside the facility.
The Trump administration’s push to quickly ramp up immigration arrests has led to overcrowding at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. As of June 20, more than 56,000 people were spending the night in detention centers nationwide on any given day. That’s 40% more than in June 2024 and the highest detention population in U.S. history, according to a Human Rights Watch report. Nearly 72% of those detained have no criminal history.
Concerns over detention conditions intensified this week after the HRW report, published Monday, documented “abusive practices” at three Florida immigration detention centers over the past six months. In addition, the New York Immigration Coalition released video showing dozens of men laying on foil sheets on the floor of a crowded immigration processing center in New York City.
NBC News recently reported on similar allegations coming from immigration advocates and detainees held in detention centers across California, Texas, Louisiana, Washington and New Jersey. They described experiencing hunger, food shortages and sickness.
‘It’s like a dog cage’
In Tuesday’s news conference, Sonia Vichara held her mobile phone up to a microphone so her husband, Rafael Collado, could publicly describe from Alligator Alcatraz the conditions he has endured over the past two weeks.
“It’s like a dog cage,” Collado, who is Cuban, said in his native Spanish. He said that a combination of floodwater from recent storms, limited access to showers and poor sanitation have caused him to get fungus on his feet.
As he was describing how detainees are stripped naked every time they are moved to a different cell and there’s not a set schedule to take his blood pressure medication, Collado was told by a guard to hang up, he said, ending the call.
Vichara said her husband had been showing up to his immigration appointments for years until he was detained recently during a routine check-in at an ICE field office in Miramar.
Another detainee, Juan Palma, also spoke to NBC Miami from inside Alligator Alcatraz on Monday.
“I feel like my life is in danger,” Palma, who is Cuban, said in Spanish. He described feeling “in a state of torture,” being swarmed by mosquitoes during his sleep and unable to tell night from day because the facility’s fluorescent lights are always on.
Palma also reported being allowed to shower only every three to four days and being kept in a cage-style unit with 32 other people.
Both Vichara and Palma’s wife, Yanet Lopez, said their respective husbands have criminal records, but they did their time. NBC Miami reported that Palma’s record included grand theft, credit forgery and battery. Vichara did not provide details of Collado’s record only limiting herself to say, “He did made a mistake, but he paid for it for 10 years.”
That’s no excuse to put detainees in harm’s way, Petit said.
“We are talking about exposing people to illnesses and even to their death. That is a human rights violation, doesn’t matter if you are an immigrant,” she said.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has denied all allegations of inhumane conditions at Alligator Alcatraz and at immigration detention centers across the nation, telling NBC News in an email Tuesday, “All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers. Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority.”
McLaughlin also said that ICE “has worked diligently to obtain greater necessary detention space while avoiding overcrowding,” adding that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “has called on states and local government to help with bed and detention space capacity.”
Concerns rise as detainee population rises
Janeisy Fernández Díaz, the mother of Michael Borrego Fernández, a Cuban national being held in Alligator Alcatraz, called for the facility’s closure Tuesday.
“I want this place to close,” she said on behalf of her son, who is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last week by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Department of Homeland Security.
In the complaint, four people being held in Alligator Alcatraz and their attorneys allege that the federal government has interfered with their ability to access detainees and provide them counsel, as well as “harsh and inhumane conditions” at the facility.
Borrego Fernández reported that people held in Alligator Alcatraz “are only allowed one meal a day (and given only minutes to eat), are not permitted daily showers, and are otherwise kept around the clock in a cage inside a tent,” the complaint states. He also reported instances of physical assaults and excessive use of force by guards, along with a lack of medical care and attention.
According to Thomas Kennedy, a spokesperson for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, Borrego Fernández has spent more than 17 days at the facility, raising questions over the facility’s operating standards.
Alligator Alcatraz is not a traditional detention facility since it’s operated and financed by the state of Florida to enforce federal immigration laws.
NBC News has a pending information request to Florida officials, asking for a list of detainees and a copy of the standards outlining detention rules at the facility.
During Tuesday’s news conference, immigration advocates made it a point to reject the Alligator Alcatraz name, which began as a political moniker invented and adopted by Republican leaders and is now the facility’s official name.
It is not the only immigration facility in Florida facing allegations.
Based on interviews with 11 current and former detainees at Krome North Service Processing Center, the Broward Transitional Center and the Federal Detention Center between January and June, as well as data analysis and conversations with 14 immigration lawyers, Human Rights Watch concluded in its report that people at these facilities were subjected to “dangerously substandard medical care, overcrowding, abusive treatment, and restrictions on access to legal and psychosocial support.”
The report also found that detainees were forced to sleep on cold, concrete floors without bedding and were given “substandard” food.