From small metal cages to a lack of personal hygiene standards, federal inspectors from the Department of Homeland Security released a damning report on Friday. It outlines the substandard living conditions for detainees at the immigration detention center dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz."
The federal government called the makeshift prison the "Florida Soft-Sided Facility."
Inspectors made a surprise visit to the site in January, six months before it shut down. The report says the findings were delayed due to a "lapse in appropriation" for DHS from mid-February through the end of April. They examined the facility, collected documentation, and interviewed detainees.
They found staff complied with intake and use-of-force standards but did not comply with benchmarks related to environmental health and safety, special management units, medical care, food service, personal hygiene, and recreation.
The report said the facility did not provide sufficient living space — less than half of what is required — "creating cramped conditions for detainees who spent most of their time in their housing units."
The minimum space per detainee is 75 square feet. The facility provided about 29 square feet.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando) visited the site soon after it opened last year. She said even then detainees had no privacy or space.
"They were living in small cages, 32 men per cage, eight cages per tent. So they were already living in squalor," Eskamani said.
But at a press conference in Lakeland on Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he toured the facility before it opened and told staff that some of their high standards were "overkill."
"And they're like, 'Well, you know, it's not required, but if we don't do it, they're going to accuse us of mistreating them.' I'm like, 'They're going to accuse you of that no matter what you do,'" he said.
It took eight days to build the facility. It was designed to detain up to 3,000 people. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data retrieved in May shows nearly 1,400 men were being held there in April this year. ICE has since removed the detention center from statistical records online.
DeSantis said Monday he had not read the report yet, but believed the facility would be characterized poorly no matter what.
"When they set it up, their goal was not only to meet the federal standards, but to actually exceed the federal standards," he said.
But the DHS report outlines a different reality — like the "calming areas" it details. They're something Eskamani said she didn't see during her tour of the facility. Federal inspectors learned 79 detainees were held for up to 2 hours at a time in 18-square-foot metal cages — slightly larger than a standard-sized porta-potty.
"To see the images of this cage, I mean, it's honestly, it just further gives confidence to the rumors and the stories that we were hearing from families that were often told that they were lying or dramatizing,” Eskamani said.
U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Orlando) responded to the report in a letter, saying it “confirms what we already knew: what happened at Alligator Alcatraz was disgusting, inhumane, and a stain on Florida’s history.”
Frost visited the facility twice. He said he saw the "calming areas" during his tours, "and before both visits, I was specifically told to see 'the cage' in the recreation area — including that there had been blood inside it."
"Both times, I was assured the cages were no longer being used," Frost said. "Now we know that wasn’t true. The federal government’s own watchdog confirmed people were being held in outdoor metal cages barely larger than a telephone booth, sometimes for nearly two hours."
DeSantis still pushed back against reports of the substandard conditions, saying the way it was reported by the New York Times, "you would have thought these (detainees) are like on a torture rack every day, and it was just the worst."
Another area of concern in the report was the Special Management Units, or SMUs. The report details them as "windowless soft-sided structures containing 16 individual cells surrounded by metal mesh that each house one detainee and measure 8 feet by 7 feet and are 8 feet tall in size."
The units were supposed to provide law libraries, legal materials, and telephone calls for detainees. However, inspectors found the people housed there did not have access to any of those things, and confirmed there were telephones, but they did not work. They reported that one detainee said he'd been held there for 8 days straight with no opportunities for recreation. Inspectors said the standards they used state that denying recreational activities for more than 7 days should happen only in "extreme circumstances" and requires a health care professional and a facility administrator.
The governor also mentions that detainees played soccer in the recreation area. But the report said people housed there were not given enough opportunity to use one of the four enclosed recreational tents, which had various sports balls, soccer nets, and basketball hoops.
Inspectors also found food storage was not up to par, inmates lacked adequate access to clean drinking water, and they were limited to three showers a week—in showers infested with bugs.
Along with the report's key findings, DHS made 10 recommendations to improve the facility. However, it's a moot point now that the detention center is shut down.
DHS did not respond to a request for an interview.
Krome Detention Center Findings
DHS also released a report about the Krome Detention Center, about 35 miles east of where "Alligator Alcatraz" formerly stood. They visited first in June 2023, and then again in late May of last year.
On the most recent surprise visit, inspectors found the facility was 25 percent over capacity and had multiple areas of non-compliance with detention standards, including:
- having the minimum number of operational toilets, sinks, and showers
- the use of de-escalation techniques with inmates
- food storage
- providing recreational opportunities to detainees housed in SMUs
- and a system for maintaining medical grievances
Krome did meet the standards for a law library and attorney visitation.
Of the nine recommendations in this report, inspectors consider three resolved and closed and 6 resolved and open.
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This story was produced by WUSF as part of a statewide journalism initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
