Immigrant rights activists in Florida are sounding the alarm after they cannot locate more than 1,000 detainees who have been “administratively disappeared” from the state’s immigrant internment camp, known as ”Alligator Alcatraz.”
Last week, the Miami Herald reported that “the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during July could not be determined,” after reviewing names from two detainee rosters.
The investigation revealed that roughly 800 people do not appear on ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System, which publicly tracks court status and locations of those in immigration custody. Another 450 had no location listed, only instructions to “Call ICE for details.”
The Herald also found that most detainees listed in the system did not have final orders of removal from immigration judges, which are required for deportation. Families and attorneys, however, have been unable to locate their loved ones.
Detainees and visiting officials, including members of Congress who toured the site in July, describe the camp’s conditions as horrific. The facility, a tent-based compound erected in the Everglades over a few days this summer, holds thousands of people detained by ICE, often without criminal charges or warrants and with limited access to attorneys.
Unlike federal immigration facilities, where detainees are generally trackable, the state-run Alligator Alcatraz operates differently.
Reporter Shirsho Dasgupta, who broke the story for the Herald, told Democracy Now! that attorneys he spoke with “don’t know who to call” to reach their clients.
Operations at the camp were briefly halted in August when a federal district judge blocked the facility on environmental grounds, but a federal appeals court stayed the ruling two weeks later, allowing it to reopen.
While Florida runs the facility, it has requested reimbursement from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, originally designed to house individuals released from ICE custody awaiting immigration court proceedings.
In a statement Friday, the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) said the Herald report confirmed what they “have been warning about for months”: detainees at the camp have effectively been administratively disappeared.
FLIC noted that Florida refuses to confirm how many detainees remain at the facility. In addition to those missing from the ICE locator tool, FLIC observed people deported before scheduled bond hearings and confirmed that the state misrepresented the number of detainees with final removal orders.
“Since this depraved torture camp funded with state FEMA funds reopened,” said Tessa Petit, FLIC’s executive director, “we have been unable to locate fathers, brothers, friends, and sons caged there without due process. Severe medical incidents, including cardiac emergencies and surgeries, go unreported.”
Thomas Kennedy, a FLIC policy analyst, added: “Alligator Alcatraz represents a new model of immigration detention, where a state-run facility operates as an extrajudicial black site, beyond previous detention standards in this country. It worsens an already terrible system.”
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