Recommendations of the Editorial team
When Donald Trump presented his new adhesive facility for migrants in Florida, which he called “Alligator Alcatraz”, he promised that she would record “some of the most dangerous people in the world”. However, according to the “Miami Herald”, most detainees have no criminal convictions.
“It is known as an alligator Alcatraz, which is very suitable because I looked outside, and that’s not a place where I want to hike,” said Trump during a live stream event on July 1. “But soon this facility will house some of the most threatening migrants, some of the most dangerous people in the world.”
According to the Herald, only a third of the approximately 900 immigrants detained in the facility was convicted of a crime. The offenses range from traffic violations or illegal returns to murder. Another 250 detainees have only committed violations of immigration law, but no criminal convictions or ongoing proceedings.
Democrats criticize inhuman conditions
An analysis of government data by Syracuse University showed that almost half of the people in ICE custody had no criminal conviction or charges at the end of the past month. Many are in the USA to apply for asylum.
The conditions in the detention center are inhuman, explained democratic MPs who visited the facility on Saturday. MPs Debbie Wasserman Schultz described the facility in which migrants are locked up with more than 30 other people fenced in with wire masters. These cells are located under tents and not in fixed buildings.
“They are basically cramped in cages, human to humans, 32 prisoners per cage,” said Wasserman Schultz.
It also criticized the quality and amount of food that the detainees were given, and pointed out that guardians would get roast chicken and sausage while the prisoners received a “gray turkey cheese sandwich, an apple and chips”.
“I don’t see how it should provide nutritional physiologically or breastfeed her hunger,” said Wasserman Schultz.
Minister of Homeland defends states
Minister of Homeland Protection Kristi Noem defended the conditions in the detention center in the Everglades in an interview on Sunday. “Our federal states are subject to higher standards than most local or state institutions and even federal prisons. The standards are extremely high,” she said in NBCS meet the press.
Noem even refused to call the fenced areas in which the prisoners are housed as “cells”.
“I was there and saw the rooms in which they are accommodated. I would not call them ‘prison cells’,” said Noem. “And I would call them a facility in which they are safely accommodated.”
A Guatemalic woman, whose husband is detained in the facility, reported that there were not enough facilities to maintain hygienic conditions. He reported that there were not enough options for washing your hands and that he couldn’t take a shower for six days. Finally he was woken up at 3 a.m. to be able to take a shower because the queues are so long.
“The prisoners are accommodated in tents and it is very hot there. The conditions are bad. … There is not enough to eat. Sick people don’t get medication. Every time I ask him about his situation, he says it was bad,” she told CNN last week.
Criticism of a remote location and building materials
In addition to the poor conditions, the location of the detention center is particularly susceptible to floods and hurricanes. The facility may not correspond to the current hurricane building regulations. It was flooded a day after the opening ceremony.
“You are in a facility that is hardly accessible to lawyers, family members and supervisory authorities,” Renata Bozzetto, deputy director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, told Washington Post. “The remote and isolated location is a problem. The fact that it is in an ecologically sensitive area is a problem. Construction with temporary materials will be catastrophic in the event of a hurricane.”
The democratic MP Maxwell Frost, who also visited the facility, said that he wanted to investigate reports on clogged toilets and “everywhere distributed faeces”, but the officials had refused access to the areas in which the migrants are actually housed. Instead, empty barracks were shown to him.
“This is something for which everyone, whether Democrat, Republican or who else, should be ashamed,” said Frost. “Immigrants do not poison the blood of this nation. They are the blood of this nation.”