Alligator Alcatraz report cites 'torture and enforced disappearances in the Sunshine State'
Amnesty International study says prisoners subjected to 'cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment' at Everglades detention camp
Amnesty International, the human rights organization, has released a report condemning the conditions at Alligator Alcatraz, and has issued a plea to the State of Florida to close the Everglades prison camp.
Among the findings in the report titled Torture and Enforced Disappearances in the Sunshine State:
Amnesty International’s research concludes that people arbitrarily detained in “Alligator Alcatraz” are 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.
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. Other treatment people have endured amounts to torture, including being put in the ‘box’, described as a 2x2 foot cage-like structure people are put in as punishment – sometimes for hours at a time exposed to the elements with hardly any water – with their feet attached to restraints on the ground. Amnesty International considers that detention conditions … amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
Amnesty International further urged the State of Florida to shutter the facility.
The organization … calls on the Government of Florida to close “Alligator Alcatraz,” to prohibit the use of any state-run immigration detention facility, to end the misuse of emergency powers, halt all no-bid procurement, and redirect detention funding toward essential healthcare, housing, and disaster-relief programs.
The study was also critical of conditions at the federally run Krome detention site in Miami-Dade County managed by Akima Global Services, noting that: “For decades, organizations, lawyers and service providers have denounced conditions at Krome, including severe overcrowding, chronic medical neglect tied to multiple deaths in custody, degrading and abusive treatment, and procedural failures that undermine individuals’ access to counsel and due process.”
Alligator Alcatraz is operated by the Florida Department of Emergency Management, but has received millions of dollars from the federal government. At one point, the facility was ordered closed by a Miami federal judge, but that decision has been put on hold by a federal appeals court.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ press secretary, Molly Best, told The Guardian that the Amnesty International report is “nothing more than a politically motivated attack.”
She went further:
“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.”
Those sentiments were echoed by Tricia McLaughlin of the Department of Homeland Security who said the report is “another day and another hoax” and stating that “Alligator Alcatraz does meet federal detention standards.”
Noting that Alligator Alcatraz is the country’s first state-run federal immigration jail, Amnesty International said:
“It operates outside federal oversight, without the basic tracking systems used in ICE facilities … The absence of registration or tracking mechanisms for those detained …constitutes enforced disappearances.”
“These findings are a wake-up call,” said Mary Kapron, a member of Amnesty International’s research team told The Guardian, which first reported this study.
“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.”
Related:
Detainees at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ facing ‘harrowing human rights violations’, new report alleges
‘Dragging its feet’: ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ appeal paused due to government shutdown
Breaking News: Appeals Court rules that Alligator Alcatraz is back in business
J.C. Bruce, journalist and author, is the founder of Tropic Press. He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and his native Florida.
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I so want the administration to be subjected to these same conditions. Karen
Your MAGA friends and family are glad this is happening. Don’t let them get through the holidays without making them acknowledge it.