Life inside notorious ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in its final days

When his son Immigration was detained, Yanisy Fernandez was afraid of the worst. Then he took a phone in the “Crocodile Alcatraz”.

“We had no idea where he was until I called us.” He said. “Mother, they took me to the facility of the Crocodile. ‘ He put it like this.

The temporary immigration detention center, built in the Everglades of Florida, has become a rapidly polarized symbol of President Donald Trump’s migration policy.

Now, just two months after being opened, the Ministry of Internal Security (DHS) said that he would close him in accordance with the orders of a judge. The process is currently going on – Tsar Tom Homan, Border, said that only 50% of the prisoners remained at a press conference.

The BBC spoke to their families of two prisoners who moved last month and said that their loved ones disappeared into the system when they were most vulnerable.

This includes Michael Borrego Fernandez, the son of Yaneisy, who said that he was left to bleeding while suffering after the medical event. It is part of an ongoing case because he claims that the prisoners have been rejected.

At the end of June, more than eight days ago in Everglades, the South Florida detention facility, a wetland, famous for its crocodiles, quickly became one of the worst immigration detention centers in the USA.

The so -called “Crocodile Alcatraz” facility was built to host approximately 3,000 people, even if the number of individuals in custody in custody throughout the United States reached 59,000 from the mid -August, but was never capable.

Although it was clear, it was a parathoner for his debate on Trump’s pressure on illegal migration. Some came to visit the central to protest, and others stopped to get proud selfies with the “Crocodile Alcatraz” sign outside.

When the facility was first opened, the Florida Republican Party Crocodile Alcatraz assigned the property: T -shirts, caps and beer coolers.

“People finally closed the border and send people out of the country that are illegally here,” Florida GOP President Evan Power said. He said.

Jack Lombardi, a Republican voter in Florida, said to the BBC, “We have laws to follow.” “And you are a guest in our country. […] The facts have come to this country illegally. You came here unwanted. “

There are contradictory reports about the conditions within it. After a visit by deputies in July, Republicans said it was a well -employed, safe and clean facility. However, the Democrats defined the conditions as inferior, crowded and unhealthy.

Now, a judge has ordered a preliminary order to close it within 60 days, but they hear a lawsuit claiming that the government does not follow the protocol while building the facility. Although the government appealed against this decision, DHS said it would comply with the judge’s decision.

“I do not agree with the judge who made this decision.” He said. “I went there. I entered the detention areas. I saw a clean, well -groomed facility.”

Michael Fernandez moved from Cuba to the United States in 2019 and his mother was temporary political asylum.

In 2021, after a hot TUB construction scheme, a judge ordered the removal. In June, he found that the company he worked for had no idea that he had defrauded customers, but was found guilty of great theft to avoid prison. His lawyer also says that Michael is not aware of his order to oppose him.

In January, he was transferred by the police while taking his nephew to school. Until June, the US Customs and Immigration Application (ICE) remained in custody and Florida was moved to the detention center.

Michael, next to some men who were detained next to Yaneisy, a call after a week was “Crocodile Alcatraz”.

“They told me that Michael was covered with blood,” he said. Michael had developed 4 hemorrhoids – the most severe type – he said. He was transferred to the hospital and had column surgery.

When he returned at the facility, Michael spoke to his mother with a short, watched phone call. “He couldn’t even stay on the phone for more than a few seconds because he suffered so severely.” He said. He told him it was an infection. “He felt a heart attack, Yan Yanisy said. “And they took him back to the hospital.”

Michael said that he was not given painkillers and handcuffed a night in a night that he could not look at the night after the surgery.

Yanisy said that they didn’t allow Michael to take a shower or did not give a change in underwear when the sages were covered on his blood and stool.

“This is not hygienic. They left him like a dog there, like someone who was thrown.”

Michael’s case is part of a case against the Trump administration, claiming that the detainees do not have access to the legal adviser through secret personal meetings with their lawyers. DHS told BBC that it was a physical space for lawyers to meet with customers.

The case continues. He moved to a different facility on 1 August.

DHS told BBC in a statement: “Michael Borrego Fernandez about these allegations wrong.” They told him that the ice provided him with “appropriate medical care and medicines.”

Florida Emergency Management Department, “a pharmacy and hygiene, clean, work facilities, including 7/24 medical care, and lawyers can plan both face -to -face and virtual appointments,” he said.

Michael’s lawyer, Mich Gonzalez, says that immigration detention centers should not be punishing – a place to control immigrants who are deported – the conditions in these facilities are “humiliating and deadly”.

“And the Everglades concentration camp is even more,” he said.

Yaneisy, “Crocodile Alcatraz” while the only person they love is not the only person who is seriously ill.

Gladys’ husband Marco Alvarez Bravo was his worst nightmare when 38 -year -old was arrested and taken to the detention facility.

Then he disappeared for more than a week.

Everything began a month ago when Marco left his house in Florida Tallahassee to visit a customer to give a guess for a construction business. Just outside their apartments, the ice agents pulled it.

“I ask the officers, why are you taking it?” Gladys remembered. “He has a legal status waiting. […] He’s not a guilty. “

Marco arrived from Chile to the United States seven years ago. He entered the country for a tourist visa where he was extremely and then applied for political asylum. Gladys, a US citizen who met his friends, said that this claim was going on and he was allowed to stay in the country while waiting for a decision. They married 11 days before the arrest.

In response to the BBC, DHS claimed that Marco was “a known member of the South American theft group”. Gladys said that her husband was not a criminal record.

Gladys was worried about her husband’s safety.

Maro Marco has a genetic heart called Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, Glad Gladys said, causing the heart to throw it abnormally fast. In April this year, he had a medical procedure to treat his illness and had a daily heart medication. Gladys said that after the procedure to the BBC, he had made a contract with pneumonia he still suffered when he was arrested.

Initially, Gladys had no idea where he was taken because Ice positioning database, an official online database that shows where people were held.

Gunther Sanabria, an immigrant lawyer representing customers in “Crocodile Alcatraz”, said that he has become ordinary for people detained by ICE not to appear in the official positioning system.

“We make people cry every week,” he said, “because they don’t know where family members were, and they went to work that morning and they were taken.”

However, Marco’s calls in the Florida Detention Center assured Gladys.

On August 14, he called on to say that there was a rupture affecting his backbone in his kidney.

The next day, another man holding with Marco called him to tell him that his husband was in a wheelchair and that he was taken to Florida Kendall Hospital.

He heard the last he heard for more than a week. He controlled it on a daily basis, but he couldn’t find his name.

It took eight days to know what happened.

He said, “I can’t believe that’s really.” “Where is my husband?”

DHS told the BBC that Marco took medical care, but did not answer a certain question about where it was currently being done. In a statement to the BBC, they said: “He is awake and can call his family at any time.” They said.

He finally received a call from Marco on 22 August. He returned to “Crocodile Alcatraz”. But in a few days they were preparing to move it again. Neither Marco nor Gladys did not know where to do.

“I’m so nervous, I’m very confused about everything that’s going on, and my nerves are a wreckage,” he said.

As of this week, Marco seems to have been moved to the 35 -mile -drive Krome Detention Facility.

While the decision of the judge to close the facility is a blow to the Trump administration, a second facility called the “limitation store” in Florida and other temporary facilities called “Speedway Slammer” by internal security officials in Indiana.

When we look at the future, Homan said that “Crocodile Alcatraz” was a “big transition facility”, but it did not see it as a long -term solution.

“I think ice needs more bricks and fees [facilities]”He told journalists.” Now we have money to build infrastructure … Permanent facilities. “

With additional reporting by Bernd Debusmann JR