In the News

A surprise oversight visit by a South Florida congresswoman to the Everglades area detention camp provided a rare glimpse of the controversial Alligator Alcatraz.

 

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, said she showed up unannounced April 9 to the state-funded immigration facility just north of U.S. 41 about 40 miles west of Miami. During her tour, the congresswoman said she was able to ascertain the facility is holding nearly 1,500 inmates, all men, who are apparently quartered according to risk classifications.

 

It was Wasserman Schultz's second visit to the facility, and she said it confirmed her takeaways from her previous time there last summer.

 

"Everything about this screams inhumane and unnecessary. And the cruelty is the point," she told reporters on a Zoom call immediately after departing the facility.

 

What we know about the men held at Alligator Alcatraz

 

Nonetheless, Wasserman Schultz said she was at least "pleased" to have been allowed to tour the camp in the Big Cypress National Preserve. Among the takeaways, she said, is that she was able to ascertain that the nearly 1,500 detainees were all males, and all appeared to be Latinos.

 

She said she was told 360 of them were older than 55 years of age, while 59 were younger than 22.

 

Another set of statistics Wasserman Schultz said she was provided had this breakdown of the population of 1,499 detainees:

 

    37%, or 556, were classified as low risk

 

    15%, or 229, were rated as medium low risk

 

    13%, 195, were listed as medium high risk

 

    35%, or 519, were designated as high risk

 

Wasserman Schultz said she was not provided details by the Florida emergency management division personnel that gave her the tour of the facility as to how detainees are classified by risk, and what the different categories mean.

 

She said she was told those assessments are made by ICE officials.

 

"I asked, and was specifically told that there is a permanent ICE presence at the facility on a daily basis," Wasserman Schultz said, "and that any decisions related to the detainees movement, referral there, their access to legal counsel, any decisions related to the ... the way they are processed is related to, is decided by ICE.”

 

Wasserman Schultz: ICE, private contractors play a large role at Alligator Alcatraz

 

Also having a large hand in the operations, Wasserman Schultz surmised, are the companies contracted to provide services.

 

"Every single person that walked me around was a contractor, except for the folks who were the director, the incident commander who works directly for [the government]," she said. "But everything else that happens there — the water, the toilets, the food, the sleeping quarters, the refurbishing of the infrastructure — everything is handled by contractors. It's clearly hundreds of millions of dollars."

 

Wasserman Schultz said she was not allowed to speak with detainees even though she said she had a "a stack of detainees' signed privacy releases" clearing the way for her to meet with specific people being held on the premises.

 

"That is unacceptable. It's also illegal," she said. "That is part of the oversight responsibilities that I have. It is required, and they are prohibited from expending any funds that block a member's ability to get access to the facility or to get information necessary to conduct that oversight."

 

The congresswoman said she felt that what she saw at the facility during her July 2025 visit was "whitewashed." In this most recent tour, she said she witnessed "inhumane" conditions including as many as 32 men housed in a single "caged" area with three small toilets that lacked any privacy.

 

"I insisted on going inside the cage today. They brought me in there," she said. "I was able to see the toilets. They are very dirty. They have hardened water stains on them, but in addition to that, they had bowel movement residue, urine around the toilets. The sinks were very dirty, and the sinks are right above the toilets."

 

In the area where meals are prepared, she said she saw turkey sandwiches dated on March 28, fully 13 days old, still waiting to be served. The meal portions, she added, seemed "lacking" for adult men.

 

"The most disappointing and disturbing parts of my oversight visit were how inhumane the conditions clearly are, how inhumane and unnecessary it is to be housing people in large tents, in cages in the middle of the Everglades," Wasserman Schultz concluded.