Detainees at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ facing ‘harrowing human right violations’, new report alleges | US news
Detainees at the infamous Florida immigration prison known as “Crocodile Alcatraz” were chained in a 2ft-high metal cage and left without water outside for up to a day, according to a shocking report. published on thursday According to Amnesty International’s claims.
The human rights group said immigrants held at the state-run Everglades facility and Miami’s Krome immigration processing center, operated by a private company on behalf of the Trump administration, continue to be subjected to “cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment,” in some cases bordering on torture.
The cage, known to detainees as “the box”, is used by guards to arbitrarily punish minor or non-existent crimes, according to the report, compiled from interviews with detainees and advocacy groups and from a field visit by Amnesty International staff to Krome in September.
“It’s a box outside, exposed to the south Florida sun and humidity and exposed to mosquitoes,” one detainee told the group.
“Once, two people in my cell were yelling at the guards that I needed my medication. Ten guards burst into the cell and threw them to the ground. They were taken to the ‘box’ and punished just for trying to help me. I saw a man being kept there all day.”
Florida’s department of emergency management (DEM) operates “Alligator Alcatraz” independently of federal facilities under the umbrella of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Molly Best, press secretary for Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, told the Guardian that the Amnesty report was “nothing more than a politically motivated attack”.
“None of these fabrications are true. In fact, pursuing these allegations without any evidence could jeopardize the safety and security of our staff and those housed at Alligator Alcatraz,” he said.
DEM has also previously denied mistreatment of migrants awaiting deportation from the remote camp. Despite these claims, the camp, which opened in July following a boastful visit by Donald Trump, quickly gained notoriety for harsh conditions, including alleged human rights violations and denial of due process.
It was ordered closed by a federal judge in August after a series of criticisms and lawsuits from environmental groups. But by October, the facility was back in operation with hundreds of detainees after two Trump-appointed appeals court judges, one of whom had close ties to her husband, DeSantis, blocked the closure.
Amnesty International’s report details allegations of “unsanitary conditions” at “Crocodile Alcatraz” including “overflowing toilets and feces leaking into areas where people sleep, limited access to showers, exposure to insects without protective measures, lights being on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy.”
“Interviewees shared that access to medical care was inconsistent, inadequate, or denied altogether, placing individuals at serious risk of both physical and mental harm. People reported being shackled at all times when outside their cages,” the statement said.
The group also said it encountered a similar situation at the “chaotic” Krome North Service processing center in West Miami. This center in particular was the subject of a separate report by Human Rights Watch in July; This report claimed that detainees were chained with their hands tied behind their backs and made to kneel to eat from Styrofoam plates “like dogs.”
Amnesty International noted delays in admission procedures, overcrowding in temporary processing areas, inadequate and inaccessible medical care, “alarming” disciplinary practices including the use of long-term solitary confinement, and difficulties accessing legal representation and due process.
Amnesty International said violence and racist abuse by guards against migrants was commonplace, adding that one of its staff witnessed a guard violently slamming the metal cover of the isolation room door onto a man’s injured hand.
Other arriving detainees were forced to sleep for several days until space was found inside a bus with no toilets or air conditioning, Amnesty International said.
“Krome’s reports of overcrowding, medical neglect, and degrading and degrading treatment paint a heartbreaking picture of human rights violations,” said Amy Fischer, the group’s director of refugee and immigrant rights.
Day-to-day operations at Krome are provided by for-profit Akima Global Services LLC. Signed $685 million contract with ICE last year in the final months of Joe Biden’s presidency. The company does not list a media contact on its website, and ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
Amnesty International also criticized the unorthodox operation of “Crocodile Alcatraz,” the country’s first state-run immigration prison funded by a fund that supports federal operations. $608 million compensation to Florida taxpayers by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in October.
“ICE operates outside federal oversight, without the basic monitoring systems used in its facilities,” the report said, claiming that some detainees arrived there after multiple transfers between facilities in a short period of time, making it impossible for their families or legal representatives to know their whereabouts.
“The absence of registration or tracking mechanisms for detainees facilitates uncommunicative detention and amounts to enforced disappearance.”
Amnesty International’s report concludes with a series of recommendations, including a call for Florida to close its “Crocodile Alcatraz” and end all agreements and cooperation with federal immigration authorities. It also calls on the Trump administration to stop the “criminalization of immigration” and end mass detentions.
“These findings are a wake-up call,” said Mary Kapron, from Amnesty International’s research team.
“The treatment of people in immigration detention centers is cruelty and harsh interception. Medical neglect, filthy and inhumane conditions, and inhuman punishment amounting to torture in some cases are abhorrent. Federal and state authorities must take immediate action to end this human rights crisis.”
