FLORIDA \u2014 It is possible that the so-called Alligator Alcatraz detention facility in south Florida could soon close its doors, as multiple news outlets have been reporting for weeks now that operations there in Collier County are winding down.<\/p>\n
The Governor has not officially confirmed this, and word has yet to come from the Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News was down near the facility Sunday as a group calling continues to push for the release of detainees.<\/p>\n
Busloads of people from across the state met in South Florida calling for Alligator Alcatraz to be shutdown, including one man who spent four months there and was released two weeks ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy experience is something I never forget in my life,\u201d said Justo Betancort. \u201cYou know, six months and a half, it\u2019s like I did more than 20 years in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it was only four months out of the six that Betancort was detained at Alligator Alcatraz, an experience he says he won\u2019t soon forget.<\/p>\n
When asked what the conditions were like inside, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s pretty bad. 32 people in 20-feet to 20-feet. Three toilets. You shower every three days. The food is bad. The medical conditions are bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Betancort said it was so bad that he was compelled to come back standing in support of those he left behind, along with a group from the nonprofit The Workers Circle, calling for justice and for the closing of Alligator Alcatraz.<\/p>\n
Standing alongside him was his daughter, Arianne. She has been there since her father was first detained.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistorically, it has been proven that when people come together and they are consistent about their efforts, change will come,\u201d said Arianne Betancort.<\/p>\n
Many supporters came from all over the state of Florida as well as from across the country. All of them with the same hope that the whispers of a possible closure of the facility might ring true.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t be soon enough, they told us on the bus that there are 600-plus people still there, and they want us to come back next week and maybe the week after, \u201csaid Gwen McCaffrey, who was participating in a vigil near the facility. \u201cWe will be here until there is nobody in the facility.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said last week that they haven\u2019t been given official word on a closure for the Everglades detention facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow there\u2019s people there now, but once they get processed out and deported, if they\u2019re not sending people, then we will flex appropriately and change our footprint.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the cries of hope echo throughout the forests of the Everglades from a group vowing to keep pushing for change. Backed by a former detainee who desperately wants to see the gates of Alligator Alcatraz close forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FLORIDA \u2014 It is possible that the so-called Alligator Alcatraz detention facility in south Florida could soon close…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[295630,2808,790,3,13677,111,79,624,13309,201],"class_list":["post-678255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-curtis-mccloud","tag-florida","tag-immigration","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-politics","tag-science","tag-tampa","tag-vod","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}