Authorities detained a 15-year-old boy without a criminal record at Alligator Alcatraz amid the haste to fill up the Florida facility, according to reports.
As the state scrambled to open the controversial detention center, Alexis, the teenager, seems to have been caught up in the mix. On July 1, three days before the facility officially opened, Florida Highway Patrol stopped a vehicle packed with Alexis and his friends before handing him over to federal authorities, the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times first reported.
Alexis endured three days in the rapidly built facility consisting of tents and chain-link pens, his father told the Tampa Bay Times.
The Florida Division of Emergency Management, which oversees the facility, admitted he had been detained, explaining he lied about his age when officers stopped him.
“While at Alligator Alcatraz, an individual disclosed they had misrepresented their age upon arrest to ICE. Immediate action was taken to separate and remove the detainee in accordance with federal protocols,” a spokesperson for the division told The Independent in a statement. “This is one of many problems with illegal immigration: individuals are in our country without any way to verify their identity.”
Three days after he was detained, on July 4, authorities transferred the boy from Alligator Alcatraz to a shelter for migrant children that is operated by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
State officials told the outlet that Alligator Alcatraz doesn’t house minors. It’s unclear what steps are being taken to prevent something similar from happening in the future. The Independent has reached out to a spokesperson for the governor’s office for more information.
The episode captures the chaos around the facility’s opening. Alligator Alcatraz, constructed to help accelerate President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, was meant to hold the “most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet," the president said. As of this week, the facility holds more than 700 people, but only one-third of them have criminal convictions, reports found.
“The case is important to highlight to ensure that there is oversight and safeguards in place because an adult facility is not a place for a child,” immigration attorney Alexandra Manrique Alfonso told the Times.
The 15-year-old was handcuffed while being transferred to the facility, Manrique Alfonso said, noting that he had been housed with adults.
Ignacio, the teen’s father, told the Times that he believes his son told authorities he was an adult when the car was pulled over because he was afraid of being separated from the group if he mentioned his true age: “It was because of fear.”
Ignacio only learned his son was detained after one of the teen’s friends called from the facility — three days later. Alexis later called his father, who told him to come clean to officials that he was a minor. Ignacio then sent a photo of Alexis’ birth certificate via text and told his son to ask for permission to use his phone to prove his age; he was transferred after they confirmed his age, the outlet reported.
Now, Ignacio is trying to reunite with Alexis. He’s even taking a paternity test.
“It is very sad that a lot of families are being separated,” he told the outlet. The father came to the U.S. in 2018 after fleeing his hometown of Chiapas, Mexico due to violence; his son followed him to Florida two years later, the outlet reported.
“When you’re apart from your kids, you miss them. If you don’t see them, you feel their absence,” the father told the Times. “I am pleading with God that we can be reunited.”
