Hundreds of detainees held at Alligator Alcatraz, the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, do not have criminal records or charges pending against them in the U.S. -- despite President Donald Trump claiming the facility would hold “the most vicious people on the planet.”
A preliminary review of the more than 700 people being held at the temporary facility found that one-third of detainees had criminal convictions, according to The Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times.
Around 250 people listed in the facility had immigration violations, which are civil offenses.
The report contradicts the president’s claim that the remote, maximum-security facility would hold the “most menacing migrants.”
Alligator Alcatraz, which was quickly converted from an abandoned airport to a detention center, is holding hundreds of alleged undocumented immigrants behind chain-link fences inside tents. Managed by the Florida Division of Emergency Management, it is meant to alleviate pressure on local jails, and assist Trump in carrying out his mass deportation agenda.
The facility is expected to hold a maximum of 3,000 people.
Conditions at the facility have sparked outrage from Democratic lawmakers and members of the public, who have described it as an “internment camp.” Several detainees have spoken out, claiming conditions are bleak with maggot-infested food, no water for bathing, and blinding lights kept on 24/7.
“They are essentially packed into cages, wall-to-wall humans, 32 detainees per cage,” Florida Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz told reporters after visiting the facility over the weekend.
“The only thing inside those cages are their bunk beds, and there are three tiny toilets,” Wasserman Schultz said.
Public support for Alligator Alcatraz is low. A July poll from YouGov found that 48 percent of people were against the detention facility.
But Trump is determined to fulfill his campaign promise of rounding up all undocumented immigrants and deporting them, either back to their country of origin or a third country willing to take displaced people.
“It’s amazing the lengths that the Fake News media will go to try and provide cover for criminal illegal aliens,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson said in a statement. “The absence of a US criminal record is an irrelevant measure when many criminal illegal aliens have charges for rape, assault, terrorism, and more in their native country, or other countries abroad.
“And every single one of these illegal aliens committed another crime when they entered the country illegally. The Trump Administration will continue carrying out the largest mass deportation operation in history by removing public safety threats from American communities,” Jackson said.
Although recent reporting indicates that hundreds of detainees at Alligator Alcatraz do not have criminal convictions or pending charges in the U.S., there are detainees being held for criminal offenses.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier provided a list of six men being held at the Everglades facility who were convicted of crimes ranging from murder to burglary to Fox News.
During his campaign, Trump misrepresented many, if not most, undocumented immigrants as violent criminals. Most evidence does not support this claim.
While the president said his focus would be on convicted criminals, around 70 percent of all detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody are being held for civil violations, not criminal convictions, according to Trace Reports.
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