Key Points and Summary – Florida’s new Everglades detention center, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” is under fire from families, activists, and Amnesty International over alleged abuses and legal limbo.
-NBC and CBS reporting undercuts Gov. Ron DeSantis’s claim that all detainees face final removal orders, showing most do not.
Governor Ron DeSantis speaking with attendees at the 2022 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.
-One man, 59-year-old Cuban national Alexis Rodriguez, was picked up after a routine ICE check-in and now says conditions are so grim he wants to be deported.
-Homeland Security insists the facility meets federal standards and calls abuse claims “hoaxes,” even as Trump toys publicly with reviving the original Alcatraz as a super-prison.
One man at Alligator Alcatraz wants to be deported
Ever since it opened earlier this year, the Florida Everglades detention center, known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” has been highly controversial.
Families of detainees and activists have alleged human rights abuses at the detention center. One detainee, per ABC News, claimed to have “spent his time confined in a chain-link cage with another man, stuck in what his fiancee Sonia Bichara described as a legal purgatory — unaware of why he was detained, where he might be sent, and how long he would be stuck in the controversial Florida facility.”
In a report earlier this month, Amnesty International alleged “Torture and enforced disappearances” at the facility.
“Amnesty International’s research demonstrates that the State of Florida’s anti-migrant and anti-asylum policies, combined with a sharp escalation in immigration enforcement actions, are instilling widespread fear in migrant, asylum seeker and mixed-status communities,” the report says.
“The increasing entanglement of state and local authorities in federal immigration enforcement through 287(g) agreements has led to an expansion of the system of mass arbitrary detention of asylum seekers and migrants, in violation of the United States’ international human rights obligations. Under these policies and agreements, the detention of asylum seekers and migrants is the norm, not the exception.”
“Debunking”
In August, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement intended to debunk what they called “Alligator Alcatraz Hoaxes.”
“Nearly 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,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement. “No feces are overflowing from toilets. Just like no one has died. Incinerators are not being used for nefarious purposes. These types of smears are directly contributing to our ICE officers facing a 1000% increase in assaults against them.”
“Here are the facts: Alligator Alcatraz does meet federal detention standards. All detainee facilities are clean. Any allegations of inhumane conditions are FALSE,” she added.
The facility’s status has also been fought over in the courts, with a district court this summer issuing a preliminary injunction ordering Alligator Alcatraz to be closed within 60 days, only to be later blocked by another court.
Now, one man who is being held at the facility is asking to be deported.
Not Final Orders
NBC Miami, this week, published a report on the status of detainees at the Alligator Alcatraz facility, seeming to debunk a July claim by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that everyone at the facility had “final orders of deportation.”
“Everybody here is already on a final removal order,” the governor said in July. “So, in that situation, to have a family member say they have the proper credentials when they’ve already been ordered to be removed through the process shows you that that is not accurate.”
But NBC Miami found that wasn’t the case.
“In fact, only 31% of the more than 1,200 men held there on July 25 had a final order of removal, according to the ICE detentions database,” the report said. “Nearly 70% did not. Most of the 1,239 still had no final order as of October 15, the last day entered in the data ICE released last week to the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project, which obtained them through a lawsuit brought against ICE.”
Self-deportation
CBS News reported on Tuesday that Alexis Rodriguez, a 59-year-old Cuban national who lives in Florida, has asked to be deported.
Rodriguez, the report said, “was detained last month after reporting for what his family says was a routine appointment at the Miramar immigration office—something he’s done for 25 years.” When he arrived at the office, Rodriguez was told that his deportation order was being executed. He was then brought to Alligator Alcatraz, where he has been for over a month.
Rodriguez was convicted and served time in the 1990s on cocaine and smuggling charges. He told CBS, “The only thing I am asking for is to allow me to leave this country.”
“I know he made a mistake, and he made it more than 25 years ago. He paid for that mistake,” Rodriguez’s wife, Magda Berge, said.
The report listed some bad conditions at the facility.
“He described food that arrives cold, in small portions, and says detainees are allowed to shower once every three days,” his wife said. Rodriguez told CBS that he has stopped taking his medication, and his health is deteriorating.
“Obviously, we want people to hear what we’re experiencing, because it’s really bad,” Berge told CBS.
It’s not clear whether Rodriguez would be deported to his native Cuba or to another country.
Bring Back the “Real” Alcatraz?
Beyond the Alligator Alcatraz, President Trump has mused about the idea of reopening the actual Alcatraz, the one on an island near San Francisco, as an active prison. The prison closed in 1963 and has been a tourist attraction and an occasional movie location since.
In May, the president said on Truth Social that he was directing the Bureau of Prisons, Department of Justice, and the FBI to “reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”
“For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals and keep them far away from anyone they could harm,” he added.
A BBC analysis examined how feasible it would be, with experts declaring the idea “not realistic at all.”
“To be frank, at first I thought it was a joke,” Hugh Hurwitz, formerly the acting director of the Bureau of Prisons, told the BBC. “It’s not realistic to think you can repair it. You’d have to tear it up and start over.”
Problems include buildings that are “literally falling apart,” as well as “no security upgrades. No cameras. No fencing.”
And while Trump claimed that Alcatraz is “far away from anyone they could harm,” it is in fact very close to a major city, while most large federal prisons are in more rural areas.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
