Detainees at the notorious Florida immigration jail known as “Alligator Alcatraz” were shackled inside a 2ft high metal cage and left outside without water for up to a day at a time, a shocking report published Thursday by Amnesty International alleges.
The human rights group said migrants held at the state-run Everglades facility, and at Miami’s Krome immigration processing center operated by a private company on behalf of the Trump administration, continue to be exposed to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” rising in some cases to torture.
The cage, known to detainees as “the box”, is used by guards for the arbitrary punishment of trivial or non-existent offenses, according to the report compiled from interviews with detainees and advocacy groups, and a site visit to Krome made by Amnesty workers in September.
“It’s a box outside, exposed to the south Florida sun and humidity, and exposed to mosquitos,” one detainee told the group.
“One time, two people in my cell were calling out to the guards telling them that I needed my medication. Ten guards rushed 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 guy who was put in it for an entire day.”
The Florida 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 to Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, told the Guardian the Amnesty report was “nothing more than a politically motivated attack”.
“None of these fabrications are true. In fact, running these allegations without any evidence whatsoever could jeopardize the safety and security of our staff and those being housed at Alligator Alcatraz,” she said.
DEM has also previously denied any mistreatment of migrants held awaiting deportation from the remote camp. Despite those claims, the camp, which opened in July following a boastful visit from Donald Trump, quickly earned a reputation for harsh conditions including alleged human rights abuses and denial of due process.
It was ordered to close by a federal judge in August after a wave of criticism and a lawsuit by environmental groups. However, by October, the facility was operating again with hundreds of detainees after two Trump-appointed appellate court judges, one whose husband has close ties to DeSantis, blocked the closure ruling.
Amnesty International’s report details allegations at “Alligator Alcatraz” of “unsanitary conditions, including overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping, limited access to showers, exposure to insects without protective measures, lights on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy”.
It said: “People interviewed shared that access to medical care is inconsistent, inadequate, or denied altogether, placing individuals at serious risk of both physical and mental harm. People reported being always shackled when they were outside their cage.”
The group also said it found a similar situation at the “chaotic” Krome North Service processing center in west Miami. That center was notably the subject of a separate July report by Human Rights Watch, who alleged detainees were shackled with their hands tied behind their backs and made to kneel to eat food from styrofoam plates “like dogs”.
Amnesty documented what it said were delays in intake procedures, overcrowding in temporary processing areas, inadequate and inaccessible medical care, “alarming” disciplinary practices including the use of prolonged solitary confinement and challenges in access to legal representation and due process.
Violence and racist abuse by guards against migrants were commonplace, Amnesty said, adding that one of its own staffers witnessed a guard violently slamming a metal flap of a door to a solitary confinement room against a man’s injured hand.
Other arriving detainees were forced to sleep for several days on a bus with no toilet facilities or air conditioning, Amnesty said, until space could be found inside.
“Krome’s extreme overcrowding, medical neglect, and reports of humiliating and degrading treatment paint a picture of harrowing human right violations,” said Amy Fischer, the group’s director of refugee and migrant rights.
Day-to-day operations at Krome are provided by the for-profit Akima Global Services LLC, which signed a $685m contract with ICE last year during the final months of Joe Biden’s presidency. The company does not list a media contact on its website, and a request for comment from ICE was not returned.
Amnesty also criticized the unorthodox operation of “Alligator Alcatraz”, the country’s first state-run immigration jail supporting federal operations, and funded by a $608m reimbursement to Florida taxpayers in October by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“It operates outside federal oversight, without the basic tracking systems used in ICE facilities,” the report said, claiming that some detainees ended up there after multiple transfers between facilities in short order, making it impossible for their families or legal representatives to know their whereabouts.
“The absence of registration or tracking mechanisms for those detained facilitates incommunicado detention and constitutes enforced disappearances.”
Amnesty’s report concludes with a number of recommendations, including a call for Florida to close “Alligator Alcatraz” and end all agreements and cooperation with federal immigration authorities. It also calls on the Trump administration to halt the “criminalization of migration” and end mass detention.
“These findings are a wake-up call,” said Mary Kapron, a member of Amnesty International’s research team.
“The treatment of people inside these immigrant detention centers is cruelty, hard stop. The medical neglect, filthy and inhuman conditions, and dehumanizing punishment, in some cases amounting to torture, is abhorrent. Federal and state officials must act immediately to end this human rights crisis.”
