Horror stories from Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz have begun trickling out.
A detainee says he witnessed guards groping and assaulting his tent-mates, according to a recorded phone call obtained by Status Coup. He said he also fears it is only a matter of time before detainees begin dying in custody there.
“This has to come out one way or another because they’re going to kill us here, little by little,” the man, a Cuban national, says in the recording. “No one pays attention to us. I’ve been here for 30 days, seeing injustice and mistreatment—it doesn’t stop. They abuse us in every way, with the food, in the bathroom, everything, everything.”
A pet project of Gov. Ron DeSantis, the immigrant detention facility opened on July 1 in the Florida Everglades. The first deportation flights from the facility began at the end of the month.
The man said he feels “violated” by guards, whom he described as “inexperienced, racist, and power hungry.” He claimed guards have stepped on the hands of some detainees and kicked others while they were handcuffed.
“They touch us all—our groins, our a–es to see if we’ve brought cookies, a little piece of fries, and they take it,” he said, according to Satus Coup. “They search us, they touch us a lot, they search and touch our whole bodies in a weird way. We feel violated. I feel violated.”
The Florida Division of Emergency Management, which oversees the facility, denied the detainee’s claims in a statement to Status Coup. The spokesperson said his claims and others like it have been “repeatedly debunked.” The division did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
The unidentified detainee was reportedly asked by his girlfriend if he wanted the press to be alerted to what he witnessed, and he said yes.
He is not the only person who has blown the whistle about the dire concerns at the facility, which was constructed in a month.
A 44-year-old Cuban national told the Spanish newspaper El País that he and others went on a hunger strike that lasted nearly two weeks because of his treatment in his tent. The Department of Homeland Security denies there is an ongoing hunger strike, but the man, Pedro Lorenzo Concepción, said he refused to eat until he was transferred to another detention center in South Florida on Saturday.
A former guard at Alligator Alcatraz, identified only as “Lindsey,” told NBC Miami this week that the facility—made up of massive tents erected on an abandoned airstrip—was akin to an “oversized kennel.” The Miami Herald reported last month that “hundreds” of the facility’s prisoners have no criminal record in the United States.
“It’s inhumane the way that they’re keeping their residents,” Lindsey said.
Florida officials plan for the tents to be able to house as many as 3,000 detainees at once. Lindsey said each tent has eight large cages, which hold 35 to 38 inmates.
Lindsey said that the facility is already being pushed to its limit as rain “pours” into tents with each shower—a common occurrence in the summertime, when there is, on average, a 51 percent chance of rainfall daily in August. Reporters got a first-hand look at this issue during the facility’s launch event last month, which President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem attended.
“They have no sunlight. There’s no clock in there. They don’t even know what time of the day it is,” the ex-guard told NBC. “They have no access to showers. They shower every other day or every four days. … The bathrooms are backed up because you got so many people using them.”
Lindsey was a “corrections officer” but was reportedly fired for allegedly “altering medical paperwork” she submitted to GardaWorld, the private company being paid $38 million to run the facility.
Guards at Alligator Alcatraz live in trailers adjacent to the prison tents, which Lindsey said have many issues of their own. Still, she expressed more concern for those being held against their will next door.
“Not everybody there is a criminal,” Lindsey said. “These people are still human. They pulled them from their livelihood. They’re scared.”
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