A new Department of Homeland Security inspector general report has confirmed for the first time that immigrants detained at Florida’s now-shuttered “Alligator Alcatraz” facility were held in outdoor metal cages roughly the size of a telephone booth.
The finding corroborates a December report by Amnesty International, based on detainee interviews and a facility tour, that described the cages as instruments of punishment amounting to torture — allegations that prompted a congressional investigation, reported NBC News.
The inspector general’s report is more measured but still concludes that “the use of such restrictive spaces is highly unconventional and does not align with standards for humane treatment.”
DHS inspectors, who visited the South Florida Detention Facility in January, found the outdoor enclosures measured about 4-by-4 feet, or 16 square feet, with indoor versions at 18 square feet — less than half the 37-square-foot minimum ICE guidelines require for single-occupancy holding rooms, and smaller than the roughly 84-square-foot solitary confinement cells used in federal prisons.
Facility staff described the spaces as “calming areas” where detainees could “de-escalate and have time alone.”
Records reviewed by the inspector general showed 79 detainees were held in the cages between July 17, 2025, and Jan. 18, for an average of just under an hour and a maximum of about two hours.
Amnesty’s earlier report quoted detainees who called the enclosures “the box” and said they were shackled hand and foot and left there for hours in extreme heat with little water or protection from insects.
Amnesty found that “the use of the ‘box’ as a form of punishment constitutes torture.” ICE officials told the inspector general detainees were shackled while being escorted to the cages but not while inside them.
The facility, built by Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration in the Everglades under a federal-state 287(g) agreement, opened in July 2025 and shut down in June 2026.
DHS has disputed that it had authority over the facility’s day-to-day operations, even though ICE personnel were stationed on site and detainees received a handbook identifying it as an ICE facility.
The inspector general’s rebuke is notable given Trump has fired at least 18 inspectors general since returning to office, but DHS’s Joseph Cuffari was among the few who kept his post.
State records show the facility cost Florida taxpayers more than $1 billion, with per-bed daily costs exceeding $3,000 — roughly 15 times the typical ICE detention rate.
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