Reporting by the Miami Herald revealed what conditions inside Alligator Alcatraz are really like. The new ICE detention center in the Florida Everglades consists of tents and trailers. The entire facility was “constructed” in just over a week.
8 days.
It’s not surprising that all of these issues are coming out about a facility that was built in just 8 days.
Video emerged last week that showed the inside the facility as flood waters flowed in across the floor.
A facility consisting of tents and large cages full of cots is going to have structural and safety concerns—among other issues.
Considering that it’s hurricane season in Florida, the people locked in cages with nothing more than tent material shielding them from the elements are in danger.
Family members and attorneys of people currently held at Alligator Alcatraz are speaking out about the horrible conditions inside.
One woman’s husband said he wasn’t able to sleep because it was so cold.
The air conditioning went out the following day, causing the temperature to shift from freezing cold to sweltering hot.
The next day, the same man told his wife that the “air is so hot.” She said he sounded out of breath on the phone.
Grasshoppers the “size of a hand” have been reported. Swarms of mosquitoes are biting people, making it impossible to sleep.
Mosquitoes aren’t just annoying bugs that leave itchy bites, they’re also known for carrying diseases.
Getting bitten by the insects that frequently makes the risk of contracting a disease from an infected mosquito much greater.
Mosquitoes in that area carry West Nile Virus, Encephalitis, and what’s known as the Everglades Virus. Scientists and doctors have raised the alarm on the dangers of a detention center filled with mosquitoes.
Lights in the facility are left on 24/7 with very little outdoor light getting inside without windows.
This, coupled with the fact that there are no clocks anywhere in the facility, has some feeling like they’re ‘going crazy’ with no way of knowing “if it’s day or night.”
Alligater Alcatraz sounds like hell—made worse by the fact that a majority of people detained there haven’t commited any crimes.
Accounts From Inside Alligator Alcatraz
From the Miami Herald after interviewing wives of men housed in the new ICE facility:
The women told the Herald that their husbands were unable to shower for several days after arriving. On Sunday, two women said their husbands complained that initially there was no water to flush toilets.
All three detainees told their wives that the bugs were getting inside, one of them saying that grasshoppers the size of his hand were springing into the tent and that the biggest mosquitoes he had ever seen were flying over them in their cells.
One detainee sent to Alligator Alcatraz from a Florida jail following a dispute with his ex was bitten on his face by mosquitoes a few times in his sleep, he told his wife on Monday morning.
Another detainee, who was arrested for driving without a license three days before arriving at the facility, told his wife he “couldn’t take” the conditions anymore.
A fourth detainee, Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy Izquierdo told CBS News and other local media outlets that the lights are on inside the facility 24 hours a day, a detail that was corroborated by a Venezuelan detainee’s wife interviewed by the Herald.
Izquierdo was transferred to the Everglades site after landing in Miami-Dade’s Turner Guilford Knight Correction Center on assault and battery charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
Cruelty is the Point
People who are cheering the deportations to South Sudan and the cruelty of Alligator Alcatraz are once again being fleeced by the Republican party.
The RNC of Florida has an online store selling Alligator Alcatraz merch like beer “coozies” and bumper stickers.
A second online merch store is run by the Attorney General of the state. They are making money off of the pain and suffering of other people.
”Tourists” wearing MAGA hats have been videotaped taking pictures of themselves standing by the sign for the new facility.
We really are in a strange timeline when people are celebrating the suffering of people they’ve lived and worked with for—in some cases—decades.
Alligator Alcatraz was created out of cruelty and the sick joke that “illegal aliens will be eaten by alligators.”
Shoddy construction and terrible conditions won’t last long. The group of tents and trailers will be wiped out in the next hurricane. We have to have hope that the people inside will soon be transferred or freed once a judge is confronted with the abuses taking place inside.
