President Donald Trump bragged that prisoners would have to run away from alligators if they wanted to escape Florida’s Everglades concentration camp.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis thought it was oh so clever to dub it Alligator Alcatraz.
But now the Inspector General from the Department of Homeland Security has issued a report that doesn’t use the word clever to describe the conditions prisoners endured, especially the closet-sized wired cages prisoners were held in to “calm them down.”
“The use of such restrictive spaces is highly unconventional and does not align with standards for humane treatment.”
So, not only was DeSantis’ hastily erected publicity stunt in the Everglades a huge financial boondoggle (costing Florida taxpayers more than a billion dollars), it also failed to comply with a host of federal detention standards.
According to reporting from The New York Times:
The report said the use of the enclosures was unprecedented among facilities the watchdog, the department’s Office of Inspector General, has previously inspected and presented “significant risks” to detainees’ health and safety.
The report raised further questions about a facility that became synonymous with the Trump administration’s harsh treatment of immigration detainees.
Federal investigators found that the metal enclosures — each providing only about 18 square feet of floor space — were used as “calming areas,” where detainees were held for periods ranging from several minutes to nearly two hours. Although facility staff said that detainees asked to spend time in the enclosures, federal investigators found at least one instance in which the enclosures were used to discipline a detainee who “failed to comply with a lawful command.”
The report said the facility’s staff failed to provide detainees with sufficient living space. National standards require detainees to be given at least 75 square feet of floor space per person. But at maximum capacity, the facility's housing units provided only 28 square feet per detainee, according to the report.
There had been no comment from the Governor’s office at the time this report was filed.
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J.C. Bruce
Gee, shocker there. Not! FL & DeSatan in action.
It's a travesty the way the immigrants were treated at Alligator Alcatraz. No matter how you feel about immigrants, all people need to be treated humanely. And the nerve of Trump and DeSantis laughing about it, disgusting. DeSantis needs to pay for his crimes against the immigrants and Florida.