COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. — After a guided tour on Saturday, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz described the conditions at the Alligator Alcatraz, a detention center for undocumented migrants in the Florida Everglades, as egregious, disgusting, disturbing, and vile.
Wasserman Schultz was with Democratic U.S. Reps. Darren Soto, Maxwell Frost, and Jared Moskowitz, and a group of state lawmakers. She said that there were 32 detainees per cage in tents at the remote Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.
“This is an appalling, outrageous environment to detain anyone,” Wasserman Schultz said during a group news conference.
Inside the cages, Wasserman Schultz said the 32 detainees had bunk beds and access to just three “tiny” toilet-sink units that were lined up in a row behind one partition.
“We saw people, of course, yelling for help. We even heard in the background someone yell, ‘I am an American citizen!’ They started chanting, ‘Libertad!’ Freedom! Liberty!”
Frost said it was very emotional for all of the lawmakers present. He also said he saw men who looked exactly like him in the cages.
“Another man screamed out that he was poisoned by Clorox in the water, and he was in the hospital for four days,” Wasserman Schultz said. “Now, we were told that there was no one who was ever hospitalized overnight, so maybe he was referring to the medical clinic.”
Frost said he was concerned about the cages not being clean, the toilets getting backed up, and feces on the floor, but he wasn’t allowed to see the toilets in the occupied cages.
“They essentially get their drinking water and they brush their teeth where they poop,” Wasserman Schultz said.
Wasserman Schultz said there were bugs even in beds that had yet to be used. She also saw insects in other areas of the indoor facilities.
“The largest grasshoppers I have ever seen in my life,” Wasserman Schultz said.
The lawmakers said they learned that there were 900 men in custody at the facility, and they were all in the final stages of deportation, but they were not allowed to talk to any of them.
“What we saw during our inspection today was a political stunt -- dangerous and wasteful,” Soto said. “Evidence of flooding, floors that are only about 8 inches above the ground.”
The lawmakers said their walk through the facility’s meal-prep area also raised concerns.
“We are talking about fully grown men being fed very small portions,” Wasserman Schultz said after describing the detainees’ lunch as a turkey and cheese sandwich, an apple, and chips.
Meanwhile, the facility’s employees were getting roasted chicken and large sausages, which were more similar to the lunches served at the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami-Dade County, according to Wasserman Schultz.
Wasserman Schultz said she was also concerned about the heat that detainees were having to endure, so she brought a manual thermostat to the guided tour.
“In the medical intake area, it was 85 degrees. This is inside the so-called air-conditioned tent,” Wasserman Schultz said.
Frost said they were not allowed to tour the medical areas, which he had toured without a problem in other facilities.
“Every Floridian should be ashamed that our taxpayer money is being used to put people in these cages,” Frost said.
The guided tour was possible after Florida Rep. Ashley Gantt filed a lawsuit against DeSantis after five Democratic state lawmakers were denied access to the facility on July 3.
“They kept state legislators trying to claim it’s a federal facility,” Frost said.
DeSantis paved the way for the facility when he declared a state of emergency in Florida in 2023 that equated the arrival of undocumented migrants to “a major disaster.”
Texas-based IRG Global Emergency Management is a contractor working with Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, at the detention center. The company was associated with Access Restoration Services US, Inc.
“He is taking instructions from the governor and he has fulfilled those instructions,” Moskowitz, a former FDEM director, said about Guthrie’s role.
Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani said the facility also had staff from the Florida Department of Corrections, and there were times when it wasn’t clear to her who was held there.
“Different terminology was used to describe those who are being detained right now, so staff referred to them as residents ... the director referred to them multiple times as inmates or detainees,” Eskamani said.
Florida Sen. Shevrin “Shev” Jones said that the idea that “the worst of the worst” was inside the facility was not true. He said the detainees wear different wrist bands that are yellow, orange, and red.
“Individuals with small infractions are inside this facility ... civil, traffic infractions ... suspended licenses are in there,” Jones said.
Florida Rep. Jennifer “Rita” Harris said there were people in the cages “who most likely do not belong” at Alligator Alcatraz. Frost promised accountability at the federal level.
“This is indicative of a greater problem too, across this country: Dehumanizing immigrants ... people like my mother who came as a refugee from Cuba,” Frost said.
Wasserman Schultz said she was concerned about the lack of clarity on who had the designated authority to manage the facility on behalf of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“This place is loaded with third-party private security officers,” Frost said. “This is not completely being run by federal agents or federal officers, not even state folks. Most of them are around the perimeter.”
An aerial view showed a white trailer with an FDEM sign. There was a Cheney Bros, Inc., trailer and a yellow Penske cargo van parked near the rows of tents. Soto said what he saw was wasteful since even water had to be trucked into the facility.
Soto and Wasserman Schultz both agreed that Alligator Alcatraz was wasteful political theater for both DeSantis and Trump.
“It probably cost double the amount to put this facility here versus right by Krome,” Soto said.
Wasserman Schultz said detainees are not in cages at other ICE facilities, and that is the case at a temporary tent at Krome where there aren’t any cages. She said none of them object to deporting criminals, but they do agree on protecting their due process.
Wasserman Schultz suggested the Homestead Air Reserve Base was a location where more habitable conditions could be established than in the middle of a swamp.
“This place needs to be shut the hell down,” Wasserman Schultz said.
Complete coverage
- Lawmakers visit ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ after being blocked
- Demonstrators outside Alligator Alcatraz describe scene as ‘heartbreaking’ and ‘sad’
- Miami archbishop blasts ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ ‘corrosive’ rhetoric targeting immigrants
- Detained immigrants at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ say there are worms in food and wastewater on the floor
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