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<\/p>\nThe calls from Alligator Alcatraz\u2019s first detainees brought distressing news: Toilets that didn\u2019t flush. Temperatures that went from freezing to sweltering. A hospital visit. Giant bugs. And little or no access to showers or toothbrushes, much less confidential calls with attorneys.<\/p>\n
The stories, relayed to the Miami Herald by the wives of detainees housed in Florida\u2019s makeshift detention center for migrants in the Everglades, offer the first snapshots of the conditions inside the newly opened facility, which began accepting detainees on July 2. They reveal detainees who are frightened not just about being deported, but also about how they are being treated by the government, which is saying little about what is taking place inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would we treat a human like that?\u201d a woman whose Venezuelan husband is housed in Alligator Alcatraz told the Miami Herald. \u201cThey come here for a better life. I don\u2019t understand. We are supposed to be the greatest nation under God, but we forget that we\u2019re under God.\u201d<\/p>\n
The men, whose identities the Herald is withholding due to their families\u2019 fears that the government will punish them for speaking out, described harsh conditions at the detention center, pitched as a new model for holding migrants ensnared in President Donald Trump\u2019s war on illegal immigration. The state, which intends to eventually house 3,000 or more people at the site, has said the detainees\u2019 descriptions provided to the Herald are \u201cuntrue.\u201d<\/p>\n
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President Donald Trump speaks while touring a newly-constructed area for a detention camp with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, foreground, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, second from right, after arriving at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Fla., on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. (Doug Mills\/The New York Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cBugs and environmental factors are minimized in the facility, restraints are only utilized during transport outside of the detention centers, and visitation arrangements can be made upon request,\u201d said Stephanie Hartman, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Emergency Management, the state agency overseeing the facility\u2019s operations. \u201cAll plumbing systems are working and operational.\u201d<\/p>\n
Detainees are telling their families a different story about what it\u2019s like to live in cells inside heavy-duty tents erected on an airstrip in Big Cypress National Preserve.<\/p>\n
On Monday afternoon, for instance, word spread quickly across the detention facility that a detainee had suffered a medical emergency. One by one, detainees started calling their family members, relaying different versions of what they believed had taken place.<\/p>\n
Outside the detention center, Betty Osceola of the Miccosukee Tribe saw an ambulance leave the facility around 2 p.m. The ambulance headed east toward Miami with its lights on, and later returned to the site, Osceola told the Herald. HCA Florida confirmed that a detainee from Alligator Alcatraz arrived at its Kendall hospital for care on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can confirm,\u201d said Jennifer Guerrieri, assistant vice president of strategic communications for HCA Healthcare\u2019s East Florida Division.<\/p>\n
State officials, however, denied there had been a medical emergency on site. A spokesman for Florida Attorney General James Uthemeier told the Herald it was \u201cfake news.\u201d After this article first published online, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged on the social media site X that the detainee had been sent to the hospital, but said he wasn\u2019t admitted and was returned to the detention center in an hour and a half.<\/p>\n
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Workers install a permanent Alligator Alcatraz sign. The facility is within the Florida Everglades, 36 miles west of the central business district of Miami, in Collier County, Florida. , Florida, on Thursday, July 3, 2025.<\/p>\n
Conditions inside Alligator Alcatraz<\/p>\n
While the state says the stories detainees are sharing with the Herald are false, various scenarios described by three women in separate interviews are matching up.<\/p>\n
The women told the Herald that their husbands were unable to shower for several days after arriving. On Sunday, two women said their husbands complained that initially there was no water to flush toilets. All three detainees told their wives that the bugs were getting inside, one of them saying that grasshoppers the size of his hand were springing into the tent and that the biggest mosquitoes he had ever seen were flying over them in their cells.<\/p>\n
One detainee sent to Alligator Alcatraz from a Florida jail following a dispute with his ex was bitten on his face by mosquitoes a few times in his sleep, he told his wife on Monday morning. Another detainee, who was arrested for driving without a license three days before arriving at the facility, told his wife he \u201ccouldn\u2019t take\u201d the conditions anymore.<\/p>\n
A fourth detainee, Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy Izquierdo told CBS News<\/a> and other local media outlets that the lights are on inside the facility 24 hours a day, a detail that was corroborated by a Venezuelan detainee\u2019s wife interviewed by the Herald. Izquierdo was transferred to the Everglades site after landing in Miami-Dade\u2019s Turner Guilford Knight Correction Center on assault and battery charges. He has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n Inside the facility, detainees say there are no clocks and there is scant sunlight coming through the heavy-duty tents, making it difficult for them to know whether it is day or night.<\/p>\n The temperature is also a cause of concern for some family members.<\/p>\n A Guatemalan detainee told his wife that he was unable to sleep on Monday night due to how cold it was inside the tent. By Tuesday afternoon, the same man told his wife that it appeared the air-conditioner had stopped working and that it was really hot inside, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by the Herald. His wife told the Herald he was detained while he was a passenger during a traffic stop with Florida Highway Patrol.<\/p>\n The Venezuelan man\u2019s wife heard the same thing on Tuesday afternoon. Her husband said the \u201cair is hot\u201d inside the tent. She said he sounded out of breath.<\/p>\n
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