Complaints about conditions at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing facility in Miramar, Florida, have intensified in recent weeks, with detainees, relatives, immigrant advocates and a member of Congress alleging that people are being held for days in overcrowded rooms without adequate food, water or sleeping accommodations.
ICE has denied the allegations, saying detainees receive appropriate care and that remaining in detention "is a choice."
The latest accounts, reported by El País, describe individuals spending several days inside the Miramar field office, a facility intended for administrative processing rather than long-term detention. Families and attorneys say the site has increasingly been used to temporarily hold immigrants transferred from arrests elsewhere in South Florida as the federal government expands immigration enforcement.
Among them is Marco Rodríguez, who was detained after attending a routine ICE appointment on June 29 with his wife, Yajaira González, while their asylum case remains pending. According to González, Rodríguez spent three days in a room with about 70 other people, with limited access to food, water and a single toilet before being transferred.
Another detainee, 19-year-old Honduran construction worker Roger Moisés Flores Oviedo, was arrested June 28 in Pompano Beach and, according to his wife, spent three days at the Miramar office before being transferred to the Krome Detention Center. She said dozens of men were held together on the floor and given minimal food and water.
Concerns about the facility first gained public attention on July 1, when immigrant advocacy groups called for greater congressional oversight, arguing that people were being held far longer than the roughly 12 hours the processing center was designed to accommodate. Advocates also alleged overcrowding, limited privacy in restrooms and detainees sleeping on the floor.
Those concerns intensified two days later after Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz made an unannounced inspection of the facility. The Florida Democrat described the conditions as "horrific," saying she observed 70 to 75 people crowded into rooms designed for 56 occupants. "There were people lying on the floor, people standing literally on top of each other," she said.
The allegations come after the closure last month of the Everglades detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz" and evacuations at the Krome Detention Center because of wildfires, prompting transfers of detainees to other facilities, including Miramar and the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami.
ICE has consistently disputed claims of inadequate conditions. The agency says the Miramar office serves as a processing site where detainees are transferred to longer-term facilities based on operational needs and maintains that individuals have access to food, water, restrooms and medical care while in custody.
