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Credit: Shutterstock<\/p>\nCredit: Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Two Florida migrant detention centers may have violated international standards by imposing conditions that could amount to torture of detainees, a human rights organization claimed in a report released early Thursday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Amnesty International, a humanitarian group spanning 150 countries, alleged in\u00a048-pages<\/a>\u00a0that the federal Krome North Services Processing Center and \u2014 to a far greater degree \u2014 the state-run Everglades site the DeSantis administration calls \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d have engaged in\u00a0practices<\/a>\u00a0that could violate\u00a0international law<\/a>.<\/p>\n They\u2019ll send their report to Congress and the United Nations later this week, demanding an independent investigation into the centers, the organization said.<\/p>\n The Florida governor\u2019s office and the Department of Homeland Security deny wrongdoing and the existence of any non-compliant standards at the facilities. They insisted the report was a \u201cfabrication\u201d or a \u201choax\u201d that could rile up anti-ICE sentiment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were all shocked and horrified by what we saw,\u201d Amy Fischer, Amnesty\u2019s executive director for Refugee and Migrant Rights, told the Phoenix. She toured Krome with five colleagues in September and interviewed four detainees, all of whom had previously been held at the Everglades site.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n None of them has a final removal order, the report says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Their accounts paint a disturbing picture of extended solitary confinement at Krome, a 2-by-2-foot punishment \u201cbox\u201d \u2014 compared to a lion\u2019s cage at a circus \u2014 complete with shackles in the Everglades, and poor medical conditions at both South Florida centers.<\/p>\n One detainee claimed there was a death at the Everglades site, although it \u201cwent unreported\u201d because \u201cthere\u2019s no way to know what actually happened to the person because we\u2019re not registered in ICE\u2019s system.\u201d<\/p>\n Amnesty only toured Krome. ICE denied its request to tour the Glades County Detention Center, which also houses immigration detainees, and the Florida Division of Emergency Management never responded to its tour request, the report says.<\/p>\n They didn\u2019t respond to the Phoenix\u2019s request for comment, either.<\/p>\n The Phoenix was unable to independently verify the four men\u2019s stories. Amnesty\u2019s report kept them anonymous, aside from their nationalities and immigration status.<\/p>\n \u2018Alligator Alcatraz\u2019<\/p>\n Florida under Gov. Ron DeSantis firmly cemented its status as the leading anti-undocumented immigration state in July after President Donald Trump flew to the heart of the Everglades to celebrate the opening of the nation\u2019s first state-run migrant detention center: Alligator Alcatraz.<\/p>\n The sprawling, former training airport, now rife with industrial tents, can hold up to 3,000 detainees at a time in caged areas. And it hasn\u2019t been without its controversies.<\/p>\n Lawsuits from Democrats, environmentalists, and activist groups have decried a lack of transparency surrounding humanitarian conditions, who is being detained, and environmental consequences.<\/p>\n Past reports<\/a>\u00a0have claimed the facility is\u00a0flood-prone<\/a>\u00a0with poor food and features a\u00a0\u201cbox\u201d<\/a>\u00a0used for punishment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Amnesty International claims that\u2019s all true.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople ended up in the \u2018box,\u2019 just for asking the guards for anything,\u201d a Venezuelan man identified as an asylum seeker told Amnesty. \u201cI saw a guy who was put in it for an entire day.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne time, two people in my cell were calling out to the guards telling them that I needed my medication,\u201d a Chilean migrant said. He recounted how he was arrested by ICE while driving to the doctor for a case of pneumonia before being jailed in Walton County for three days.\u00a0<\/p>\n He was bused to the center around 9 p.m. on a Friday, shackled until 4 a.m. without \u201cany food or water,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cTen guards rushed into the cell and threw them to the ground. They were taken to the \u2018box\u2019 and punished just for trying to help me,\u201d he continued. \u201cAny time that anyone demanded that our rights be respected, they were punished.\u201d<\/p>\n Fischer told the Phoenix that the \u201cbox\u201d resembled a lion\u2019s cage at a circus, standing at just two-feet tall by two-feet wide. She said shackles are attached to its floor, and that it was kept in the \u201chot Florida sun.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople have to stay there for hours shackled and denied food and water as a form of punishment,\u201d she said. \u201cAmnesty\u2019s analysis, based upon the use of the box, we have found that it meets the definition of torture under international law.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a copy of Guant\u00e1namo,\u201d a Cuban man identified as an asylum seeker told Amnesty. He was detained there for 11 days. \u201cThe conditions are inhuman.\u201d<\/p>\n Thirty-two people are locked in a 1,000 square foot \u201ccage\u201d inside of a tent holding eight cages, the report says. There are three toilets per cage with cameras affixed above them, although another Cuban migrant said the toilets were frequently clogged \u201cand s*** overflowed from them.\u201d<\/p>\n They claimed staff would keep the bright \u201cstadium lights\u201d on 24\/7.<\/p>\n The report alleges other malfeasance, including \u201cracism,\u201d lengthy delays in medical attention, and migrants getting just minutes to speak with their attorneys on a collect-call phone.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018Fabrications\u2019 and a \u2018hoax\u2019<\/p>\n The Florida governor\u2019s office and the Department of Homeland Security vehemently pushed back on Amnesty\u2019s allegations in statements to the Phoenix. They contended it contains fabrications that could stir up violent animosity toward immigration officials.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200b\u200bAnother day and another hoax about Alligator Alcatraz,\u201d wrote DHS Assistant Director Tricia McLaughlin. \u201cNearly every single day, my office responds to media questions on FALSE allegations about Alligator Alcatraz. The media is clearly desperate for these allegations of inhumane conditions at this facility to be true.<\/p>\n \u201cFeces are not overflowing in the toilets. Just like no one has died,\u201d she continued. \u201cThese types of smears are directly contributing to our officers facing a 1,153% increase in assaults against them.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHere are the facts: Alligator Alcatraz does meet federal detention standards. All detainee facilities are clean. Any allegations of inhumane conditions are FALSE. When will the media stop peddling hoaxes about illegal alien detention centers and start focusing on American victims of illegal alien crime?\u201d<\/p>\n A\u00a0Los Angeles Times investigation<\/a>\u00a0suggests that figure overstates the seriousness of the problem. However, a sniper targeted a\u00a0Dallas ICE facility<\/a>\u00a0in September, opening fire on agents and migrants alike. Two detainees were killed. On July 4, a group of suspects launched a coordinated attack on the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, using fireworks to lure officers into an ambush.<\/p>\n DeSantis\u2019 press secretary, Molly Best, echoed McLaughlin in her statement to the Phoenix.<\/p>\n \u201cThis \u2018report\u2019 is nothing more than a politically motivated attack,\u201d she said. \u201cNone 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Amounts to torture\u2019<\/p>\n The Everglades site wasn\u2019t the only center Amnesty believes to have violated international standards.<\/p>\n At Krome in western Miami, the report details an ICE-led tour throughout parts of the federal detention center.\u00a0<\/p>\n One section they entered was the solitary confinement ward. ICE officials told Amnesty that the minimum duration for solitary confinement is 24 hours and that the maximum is 30 days, though that can be extended, the report says.<\/p>\n One man held in solitary confinement put a sign through the metal flap in the door reading, \u201cHelp Me. I\u2019m on Hunger Strike.\u201d He had a broken hand, and ICE told the researchers he was being held there because of his hunger strike.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe man showed Amnesty his bruised and mangled hand and said he had been waiting 37 days to receive medical attention,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the man was describing his injuries, an ICE official repeatedly and violently slammed the metal flap against the injured man\u2019s hands and forced Amnesty International out of the solitary confinement area, stating, \u2018This is a detained population. They can be dangerous. Allow security to do their jobs, also he\u2019s not on a hunger strike. He ate yesterday and today.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Because the United Nations\u00a0considers<\/a>\u00a0solitary confinement in excess of 15 days to amount to \u201ctorture,\u201d Amnesty found that the detention conditions at Krome \u201cdo not comply with international human rights law and standards.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIndividuals are held in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions, face prolonged or arbitrary solitary confinement, lack adequate access to legal counsel and medical care, and experience treatment that collectively amounts to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe use of prolonged solitary confinement at Krome and the use of the \u2018box\u2019 at \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d amount to torture or other ill-treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Apple News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>\u00a0| Or sign up for our\u00a0RSS Feed<\/a><\/p>\n Related Stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tDecker, who was on assignment for three news outlets, was covering a protest action by Sunshine Movement, which saw many of its members arrested.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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