Detainees at Florida’s notorious ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ immigration jail have alleged that guards are denying them food and fresh water until they sign documents presented in English, a language they do not understand. In an audio recording of a telephone call to an immigration advocacy group, more than half a dozen detainees claimed the water provided over the past three days was ‘rotten’ and contained mosquito larvae, in what appears to be an attempt to pressure them into signing.
During the call, all detainees identified themselves by name and their section and cage number, though these details are being withheld due to fears of reprisals. ‘They took all the water, and they don’t want to give us water,’ one detainee told a representative of the Workers Circle, an advocacy group acting as a liaison between detainees and their families. ‘They haven’t given us lunch, and they are mistreating us here. Right now, at this very moment, half past one in the afternoon, we haven’t had lunch here in Alcatraz, and they wanted to make us sign a paper in English that we don’t know what that paper says.’
The detainee added that guards had taken reprisals for not signing the paper, including withholding water and medicine. ‘Today the medicine came very late, but here we have people here who are diabetic, one here with high blood pressure.’ He explained that complaints about water quality had been ongoing for several days, and on Thursday morning, chants of ‘agua, agua’ broke out when water was withheld entirely. ‘The water has pests, the water has a bad taste, [you] open the water tubs and they have mosquito larvae,’ he said.
Another detainee described the water as ‘stinky and rotten’ and said he saw mosquitoes emerging from a substance in the water. He confirmed that no one in his cell had signed any document yet.
Reports last month indicated that ‘Alligator Alcatraz’, operated by the state of Florida on behalf of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), would wind down operations in June, leading to eventual closure. In its nearly one year of operation, the tented facility, built on a little-used training airport in the Florida Everglades, has gained a reputation for brutal treatment of undocumented detainees held in metal cages, along with a series of alleged human and civil rights abuses. These include denial of access to immigration lawyers, frequent and sudden transfers to other facilities, and pressure to consent to deportation without legal representation.
Noelle Damico, director of social justice for the Workers Circle, described Thursday’s developments as an escalation of pressure to force detainees to agree to leave. ‘They’re being asked by guards to sign documents that they cannot fully see, nor do they understand,’ she said. ‘This has been going on for several days, and right now they’ve stopped giving them water. The water in the past three days has been unusually disgusting with mosquito larvae, dirt in it, and tasting absolutely rotten. So that predates today, now they’ve removed the water. They were fed breakfast this morning, but lunch was withheld. This is an outrageous violation of basic human rights under international and national law.’
The Guardian has contacted the Florida Department of Emergency Management, which oversees the facility’s operation using private guards, for a response. In a statement on 29 May, following a previous allegation that a detainee with diabetes was denied medication, Stephanie Hartman, the department’s director of communications, said: ‘Medical facilities and staff, including a pharmacy, are available 24/7 to detainees.’ The department has previously denied any mistreatment or abuse of detainees.
