Detainees describe worms in food, sewage near beds inside ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

MIAMI AP Worms in the food Toilets that don t flush flooding floors with fecal waste Days without a shower or prescription medicine Mosquitoes and insects everywhere Lights on all night Air conditioners that suddenly shut off in the tropical heat Detainees forced to use recorded phone lines to speak with their lawyers and loved ones Only days after President Donald Trump toured a new immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades that administrators have dubbed Alligator Alcatraz these are various of the conditions described by people held inside Attorneys advocates detainees and families are speaking out about the makeshift migrant detention center Republican Gov Ron DeSantis administration raced to build on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland The center began accepting detainees on July These are human beings who have inherent rights and they have a right to dignity revealed immigration attorney Josephine Arroyo And they re violating a lot of their rights by putting them there Establishment officers have adamantly disputed the conditions described by detainees their attorneys and family members but have provided insufficient details and have denied access to the media A televised tour for Trump and DeSantis demonstrated rows of chain-link cages each containing dozens of bunkbeds under large white tents The reporting on the conditions in the facility is totally false The facility meets all required standards and is in good working order declared Stephanie Hartman a spokesperson for the Florida Division of Exigency Management which built the center A group of Democratic lawmakers sued the DeSantis administration for access The administration is allowing a site visit by state legislators and members of Congress on Saturday July Descriptions of attorneys and families differ from the administration s model Families and attorneys who spoke with The Associated Press relayed detainees accounts of a place they say is unsanitary and lacks adequate medicinal care pushing selected into a state of extreme distress Such conditions make other immigration detention centers where advocates and staff have warned of unsanitary confinements health neglect and a lack of food and water seem advanced reported immigration attorney Atara Eig Trump and his allies have praised this detention center s harshness and remoteness as befitting the worst of the worst and as a national model for the deterrence needed to persuade immigrants to self-deport from the United States But among those locked inside the chain-link enclosures are people with no criminal records and at least one teenage boy attorneys explained the AP Concerns about therapeutic care lack of medicines Immigration attorney Katie Blankenship described a concerning lack of clinical care at the facility relaying an account from a -year-old Cuban client who described his wife that detainees go days without a shower The toilets are in the same space as the bunkbeds and can t handle their necessities she revealed The wife a -year-old green card holder and the mother of the couple s -year-old daughter who is a U S citizen relayed his complaints to the AP Fearing regime retaliation against her and her detained husband she demanded not to be identified They have no way to bathe no way to wash their mouths the toilet overflows and the floor is flooded with pee and poop the woman reported the AP They eat once a day and have two minutes to eat The meals have worms she added The woman mentioned the detainees all went on a hunger strike on Thursday night to protest the conditions There are days when I don t know anything about him until the evening she commented describing waiting for his calls interrupted every three minutes by an announcement that the conversation is being recorded No meetings with attorneys The detainees attorneys say their due process rights are among numerous constitutional protections being denied Blankenship is among the lawyers who have been refused access After traveling to the remote facility and waiting for hours to speak with her clients including a -year-old Mexican boy with no criminal charges she was turned away by a safety guard who communicated her to wait for a phone call in hours that would notify her when she could return I reported well what s the phone number that I can follow up with that There is none Blankenship recalled You have due process obligations and this is a violation of it Arroyo s client a -year-old Mexican man who came to the U S as a child has been detained at the center since July after being picked up for driving with a suspended license in Florida s Orange County He s a beneficiary of the DACA scheme created to protect young adults who were brought to the U S as children from deportation and to provide them with work authorization Blankenship s Cuban client paid a bond and was advised he d be freed on a criminal charge in Miami only to be detained and transferred to the Everglades Eig has been seeking the release of a client in his s with no criminal record and a stay of removal meaning the regime can t legally deport him while he appeals But she hasn t been able to get a bond hearing She s heard that an immigration court inside the Krome Detention Center in Miami may be hearing cases from the Everglades facility but as of Friday they were still waiting Jurisdiction remains an issue Eig mentioned adding the issue of who s in charge over there is very concerning