Immigrants at a Florida immigration detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," were shackled and left outside in a 2-foot-high metal cage for up to a day without water, according to a report published Thursday by Amnesty International.
The group visited the lockup in September.
The 61-page report stated that immigrants were being held in "inhuman and 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."
The use of prolonged solitary confinement in a 2-foot-by-2-foot cage in Alligator Alcatraz's yard "amount to torture or other ill-treatment," the group said.
"The conditions of the 'box' ... would likely cause severe physical and psychological pain and suffering," the report read. "Amnesty International considers that the use of the 'box' as a form of punishment at 'Alligator Alcatraz' constitutes torture."
The organization called on the Trump administration to stop criminalizing immigrants, end its "cruel" mass immigration detention and deportation machine, bar the use of state-owned sites for immigration custody detention, ensure thorough investigations of all deaths, abuses, and allegations of torture in custody, and comply with international human rights law and standards.
The facility — in the Everglades at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport inside Big Cypress National Preserve — opened in early July and is run by Florida's Division of Emergency Management in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security.
Its capacity is reportedly around 2,000 beds with plans floated for as high as 5,000.
Critics — including some members of Congress, Florida Democrats, immigrant rights groups, and environmental advocates — call the camp a harsh, improvised detention operation in a fragile ecosystem, designed as much for deterrence and politics as for processing.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration and state officials reject these characterizations, framing the camp as necessary surge capacity for federal deportation policy and calling outside reports politically motivated.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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