{"id":847885,"date":"2026-09-14T21:06:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T21:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/847885\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T21:06:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T21:06:42","slug":"dhs-watchdog-finds-immigrants-held-at-alligator-alcatraz-in-outdoor-cages-the-size-of-phone-booths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/847885\/","title":{"rendered":"DHS watchdog finds immigrants held at \u2018Alligator Alcatraz\u2019 in outdoor cages the size of phone booths"},"content":{"rendered":"

Homeland Security\u2019s inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, is one of the few Cabinet-level inspectors general who wasn\u2019t fired in the purge. <\/p>\n

DHS IG inspectors visited the facility in January as part of its Congressional mandate to inspect detention facilities. The inspector general\u2019s report found the \u201csmall metal enclosures\u201d were roughly 4-by-4, or 16 square feet, and facility staff members described them as \u201ccalming areas\u201d for \u201cdetainees to de-escalate and have time alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The facility also had indoor cages that measured 18 square feet, the report says. <\/p>\n

The cages are less than half the size of the smallest spaces that people are supposed to be held at immigration detention facilities. ICE guidelines<\/a> say rooms designed to hold one person at a time should be a minimum of 37 square feet. By comparison, solitary confinement cells at federal prisons are around 84 square feet.<\/p>\n

The detention facility, which Florida\u2019s attorney general dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, opened in July 2025 in the Everglades and was built by Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 administration<\/a>. It was part of a state and federal partnership known as a 287(g) agreement<\/a>, which allows state and local law enforcement agencies to carry out special immigration enforcement duties, which are otherwise a federal responsibility.<\/p>\n

ICE is to provide oversight \u201cto ensure compliance with federal immigration law and ICE policies,\u201d and immigration enforcement activities will be \u201csupervised and directed by ICE,\u201d according to 287(g) agreements between Florida agencies and ICE, which were filed in court documents in a lawsuit over the existence of the facility.<\/p>\n

Homeland Security denied that it had authority over day-to-day operations at the facility, writing in a signed response from the DHS undersecretary of management and the acting director of ICE to the inspector general\u2019s report that ICE didn\u2019t have a contract with the state of Florida to run Alligator Alcatraz. Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, also wrote that the 287(g) agreement doesn\u2019t give the federal government authority over the physical operations of any detention facility.<\/p>\n

\"SomeSome immigrant detainees held at Florida\u2019s now-shuttered \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d were confined for up to two hours inside outdoor cages only slightly larger than a telephone booth, according to a new report by the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s inspector general.Dept. of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General<\/p>\n

The IG report noted that ICE personnel were on site at the facility and all detainees were given an ICE handbook that said Alligator Alcatraz \u201cis a facility of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement,\u201d despite the lack of a contract to run day-to-day operations. <\/p>\n

DHS didn\u2019t immediately respond to additional questions about the report or the agreement. <\/p>\n

DeSantis was asked about the report <\/a>during his daily press conference and said he had not read it. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know that it was inspected, all those standards,\u201d he said of the detention facility. The goal was not to apply those standards but to exceed those standards.\u201d <\/p>\n

DeSantis and Trump toured the facility together and described it at the time as crucial to helping in the Trump administration\u2019s mass deportation effort. But the use of tented housing units and detainees\u2019 vulnerability to severe weather immediately drew backlash from Democrats and immigrant advocates \u2014 and sparked a series of lawsuits that are ongoing. <\/p>\n

The facility shut down in June. DeSantis said it was always meant to be temporary, and detainees were either deported or sent to other federal facilities. <\/p>\n

Amnesty International<\/a> toured the facility in September 2025 and was able to interview four detainees, finding \u201cinhuman and unsanitary conditions,\u201d including overflowing toilets \u201cwith fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping,\u201d exposure to insects and lights 24 hours a day, according to the its report on the tour. <\/p>\n

Some of the detainees interviewed for the Amnesty report also described the metal cage, which they called the \u201cbox.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIndividuals are put in the \u2018box\u2019, their hands are shackled and their feet are attached to restraints on the ground,\u201d the Amnesty report said. \u201cThey are unable to sit down or move positions, and are forced to remain there for hours in the heat with hardly any water or protection from the sun, heat and insects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amnesty concluded that \u201cthe use of the \u2018box\u2019 as a form of punishment constitutes torture.\u201d<\/p>\n

ICE told the inspector general that the detainees were shackled when they were \u201cescorted to the enclosures but not while in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Records reviewed by the inspector general showed that 79 detainees were held in the 16- and 18-square foot metal cages over the six months from July 17, 2025, to Jan. 18.<\/p>\n

The average time was just under an hour, and the longest anyone spent in one of the cages was just about two hours, according to the inspector general\u2019s report, which relied on internal records from the facility.<\/p>\n

A sign attached to the outside of the \u201cholding cell\u201d said it was used to \u201cprovide a safe and secure place in the general population for detainees to reflect on their behavior choices, manage their emotions, reduce stress and practice self-directed behavior.\u201d <\/p>\n

According to facility records included in the inspector general\u2019s report, a detainee \u201cmay have a maximum of 2 hours to spend in the holding cell and may leave at any time, by detainee request or per staff directive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staffers reported that \u201ctime spent in the small metal enclosures is closely monitored, and detainees are not locked in, even though we observed locking mechanisms on them,\u201d the inspector general\u2019s report says. The picture of the cage included in the report shows an exterior-facing door lock similar to one used for a public restroom where a code is punched in to open it. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear whether other ICE facilities hold detainees in such close quarters. <\/p>\n

The Florida facility cost the state more than $1 billion in taxpayer money, according to state records made public in a lawsuit. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has so far provided Florida $608 million for its operation, according to the inspector general\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

Internal government spreadsheets, revealed in court filings and reviewed by NBC News, show the facility cost taxpayers more than $1 million a day to operate. <\/p>\n

The typical cost for an ICE detention bed is less than $200 per day, but a bed at the Everglades facility cost in excess of $3,000 per day, according to the court filings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Homeland Security\u2019s inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, is one of the few Cabinet-level inspectors general who wasn\u2019t fired in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-847885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847885","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=847885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}