Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\nFor eight days, Rodriguez Caglianone, 28, said she witnessed how people were forced to sleep on a dirty floor in \u201cdeplorable\u201d conditions at the ICE-Enforcement Removal Operations Center in Miramar.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they only cleaned the room twice. They didn\u2019t clean the toilets. Every time we asked for water, they would say, \u2018Drink water from the sink,\u2019\u201d Rodriguez Caglianone said on Tuesday, while standing with U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz at her government office in Sunrise. <\/p>\n
Rodriguez Caglianone said she and others received expired food with mold in Miramar, where she felt like she was treated like an \u201canimal in a zoo,\u201d as 47 women were held in an unhygienic room. <\/p>\n
Wasserman Schultz said the ICE-ERO Center in Miramar is a \u201ccheck-in facility,\u201d so ICE is supposed to \u201ctransition\u201d detainees within 12 hours, and has \u201ca waiver\u201d to hold detainees for up to 72 hours. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was an elderly lady, I remember she had two problems with her knees, plus diabetes. Their medications were not made easily available to them,\u201d Rodriguez Caglianone said. <\/p>\n
After she was transferred to the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Rodriguez Caglianone said she and other detainees were finally able to take a shower. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey still treated us like criminals,\u201d said Rodriguez Caglianone, adding that they didn\u2019t have easy access to their attorneys. <\/p>\n
Rodriguez Caglianone said she also met two pregnant women who lost their babies during their detention due to a lack of medical attention. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were people that had cancer. They did their first chemo before they were in, and they were not allowed to get their second chemo,\u201d Rodriguez Caglianone said through tears about a woman who had been diagnosed with breast cancer before her detention. <\/p>\n
Rodriguez Caglianone said there was a \u201clack of humanity\u201d behind bars, and the elderly were also mistreated. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have kids her age,\u201d Wasserman Schultz said through tears during the news conference. <\/p>\n
Venezuelan woman released from ICE custody in Pompano Beach following family protest <\/p>\n
Rodriguez Caglianone was born in Venezuela, and her asylum request has been pending for about nine years. <\/p>\n
She traveled to the U.S. with a tourist visa and applied for asylum in 2017. She also had Temporary Protected Status from 2023 to last year when the Trump administration ended the program. <\/p>\n
While living in South Florida, Rodriguez Caglianone played soccer for St. Thomas University and earned a Master of Business Administration last year. She doesn\u2019t have a criminal record. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe is my little cousin, and my job is to protect her, and to feel like I wasn\u2019t able to do that \u2014 it\u2019s heartbreaking,\u201d Rodriguez Caglianone\u2019s cousin Gabriel Dominguez told reporters. <\/p>\n
ICE detained Rodriguez Caglianone at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport as she attempted to travel to North Carolina to watch the FIFA World Cup on July 19 with friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey handcuffed me like a criminal,\u201d Rodriguez Caglianone said about her detention at FLL. <\/p>\n
ICE released Rodriguez Caglianone on Monday from the Broward Transitional Center after Wasserman Schultz\u2019s advocacy. Her family, friends, and supporters used the \u201cFree CC\u201d hashtag in protest. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a lot of injustices,\u201d Rodriguez Caglianone said in Spanish about what she witnessed during her detention. <\/p>\n
Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat critical of President Donald Trump\u2019s push for deportations, is running for re-election in the 20th congressional district, after representing the 25th district, which changed during recent state redistricting. <\/p>\n
Watch the news conference<\/p>\n
Watch video of protest<\/p>\n
Related reports<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUNRISE, Fla. \u2014 Claudia Carolina Rodriguez Caglianone, who has been living in South Florida since 2017, said she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-362894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}