A report released Wednesday by Amnesty International alleges cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment at two immigration detention centers in Florida: The Everglades Detention Facility (“Alligator Alcatraz”) in eastern Collier County and the Krome North Service Processing Center (Krome) in Miami.
The report, Torture and enforced disappearances in the Sunshine State: Human rights violations at “Alligator Alcatraz” and Krome in Florida, lists human rights violations that, in some cases amount to torture, occurring at Krome and “Alligator Alcatraz” within what the report calls "an increasingly hostile anti-immigrant climate in Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis."
The report further said that the DeSantis administration has intensified criminalization and mass detention of migrants and people seeking safety.
The report's findings were gathered during a September 2025 research mission.
“These findings confirm a deliberate system built to punish, dehumanize, and hide the suffering of people in detention,” said Ana Piquer, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Americas. “Immigration enforcement cannot operate outside the rule of law or exempt itself from human rights standards. What we are seeing in Florida should alarm the entire region.”
According to information from the report posted on the Amnesty International website, research concluded that people arbitrarily detained in “Alligator Alcatraz” are living in inhuman and unsanitary conditions including overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping, limited access to showers, exposure to insects without protective measures, lights on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy – including cameras above the toilets.
The report said that people interviewed shared that access to medical care is inconsistent, inadequate, or denied all together, placing individuals at serious risk of physical and mental harm. People reported being always shackled when they were outside their cage. Other treatment those detained have endured amounts to torture, including being put in the “box”, described as a 2×2 foot cage-like structure people are put in as punishment – sometimes for hours at a time exposed to the elements with hardly any water – with their hands and feet attached to restraints on the ground.
The report said “Alligator Alcatraz” operates outside federal oversight, without the basic tracking systems used in ICE facilities. The absence of registration or tracking mechanisms for those detained at Alligator Alcatraz facilitates incommunicado detention and constitutes enforced disappearances when the whereabouts of a person being detained there is denied to their family, and they are not allowed to contact their lawyer.
“These despicable and nauseating conditions at Alligator Alcatraz reflect a pattern of deliberate neglect designed to dehumanize and punish those detained there,” said Amy Fischer, Director of Refugee and Migrant Rights with Amnesty International USA. “This is unreal – where’s the oversight?”
The criticism of ICE's Krome detention center in Miami was equally severe. At Krome, operated by a private for-profit company, the report said research confirmed that despite having medical facilities on site, detained individuals reported serious medical negligence including failure to provide treatments and medical assessments. People detained at Krome confirmed previous reports of human rights violations. For example, there were reports of overcrowding, prolonged and arbitrary solitary confinement, lack of adequate medical care, overflowing toilets, lack of access to showers, constant illumination, and broken air conditioning.
“These despicable and nauseating conditions at Alligator Alcatraz reflect a pattern of deliberate neglect designed to dehumanize and punish those detained there. This is unreal – where’s the oversight?”Amy Fischer, Director of Refugee and Migrant Rights with Amnesty International USA
In the report, people shared stories of violence and ill-treatment from guards. Amnesty International staffers witnessed a guard violently slam a metal flap of a door to a solitary confinement room against a man’s injured hand. Other people reported being hit and punched by guards. People also reported difficulty in accessing counsel, and not knowing how long they will be detained nor what will come next for them.
“Krome’s extreme overcrowding, medical neglect, and reports of humiliating and degrading treatment paint a picture of harrowing human right violations,” said Fischer.
Amnesty International recommended that the U.S. government address systemic human rights violations within immigration detention facilities and urged Florida officials to close Alligator Alcatraz and to prohibit the use of any state-run immigration detention.
“The conditions we documented at Alligator Alcatraz and Krome are not isolated – instead they represent a deliberate system of cruelty designed to punish people seeking to build a new life in the U.S.,” said Fischer. “We must stop detaining our immigrant community members and people seeking safety and instead work toward humane, rights-respecting migration policies.”
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