More than two dozen people gathered on a recent Sunday afternoon around a patch of dirt across the street from Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades. Many of them in their 60's or older — retirees and snowbirds from Naples and Fort Myers on Florida’s west coast who, week after week, travel by bus or car to this to this remote location to speak out for immigrants detained by the Trump administration.
They have come from various churches and faith traditions in South Florida to hold "Freedom Vigils" for nearly a year to pray and demonstrate against what they say are inhumane conditions inside the immigrant detention center.
“It just angered me and sickened me. This is a country that shouldn't be standing for anything like this,” said 82-year-old John Reynolds from Naples.
Reynolds talks from his seat on a blue lawn chair he brought on the bus. He says he served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, working in Army intelligence.
When he heard that Florida and Alligator Alcatraz were becoming models for immigrant detention facilities around the country, Reynolds was determined to come out and do something.
“ This isn't what a lot of people in the service spent their time in the service, you know, paying a price for,” he said.
READ MORE: Former Alligator Alcatraz detainee: ‘Prison was better than that place’
For more than 40 weeks, volunteers from Southwest Florida have gathered each and every Sunday outside the controversial immigrant detention center for the vigils. They pray for the people detained inside, and for the facility itself to be shut down.
Former detainees have told WLRN that migrants in Alligator Alcatraz are kept in cages akin to animal pens, and they have limited access to medical care or personal hygiene. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security denied the claims in a written statement to WLRN.
Now, with reports that DHS may shut the detention center down by early June because of mounting costs, the vigil organizers are even more committed to continuing their weekly trek to speak out against Alligator Alcatraz.
The people here have forged a community through the vigil, connecting with each other to plan demonstrations and garner support for immigrants in detention and their worried families. One person brings fruits from his yard or brownies his wife made. People share tents and signs they brought from home. They share in joy — and grief.
Arianne Betancourt’s father Justo, was recently released from detention at Alligator Alcatraz. She’d been a regular attendee at the Sunday vigils, but couldn’t make it this time. She called and an organizer put a mic up to the phone.
“ First of all, I wish I was there today to celebrate with all of you that my dad is finally free. He is home. I wanna thank everyone for 42 weeks of efforts, not just for my family, but for so many others,” Betancourt said.
She couldn’t be at the vigil in person, because her father had been hospitalized following his lengthy detention.
“My father was released in the worst health condition that I've ever seen. He can barely speak. He can barely walk. He was experiencing strokes during detention, and they were doing nothing about it. They would tell him to drink water, lay down, and sleep it off,” Betancourt said.
A DHS spokesperson confirmed that Justo was arrested last October, and described him as a "criminal illegal alien from Cuba” with convictions for drug possession. WLRN could not independently confirm the details of his conviction.
The DHS said there is no record of Justo suffering a stroke while in federal custody, and that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officials provide medical care for detainees.
“It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody,” the spokesperson wrote. “This includes medical, dental, and mental health services as available, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care. For many illegal aliens this is the best healthcare they have received their entire lives.”
Vigil members prayed for the Betancourt family, just as they prayed for Justo for the many months he was in detention. Even members of the Miccosukee native American tribe joined in, including local activist and tribal member Betty Osceola.
“I pray that for the healing for this man and for his family, so that he can spend more days with his family, creating more happy memories,” Osceola prayed following a traditional Miccosukee religious performance by another tribe member.
The Miccosukee Tribe last year joined a lawsuit with two environmental groups, Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, alleging that federal and state agencies didn't follow federal law requiring an environmental review for the detention center in the middle of sensitive wetlands. And that it was built on sacred land.
Imminent shutdown
The New York Times and other media outlets have reported earlier this month that DHS officials want to close down the facility because it's too costly to maintain. Vendors have allegedly been told to wind up operations by early June, near the first anniversary of the detention center's opening.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a recent press conference that the facility was never meant to stay open permanently.
“It’s at an airport down there where everything that we constructed is temporary. We didn’t build any permanent facilities down there because we knew it was going to be temporary,” he said.
Noelle Damico, social justice director for the Workers Circle — a secular Jewish group that’s led the Freedom Vigils — calls this moment the “one-yard line.”
“We cannot give one inch. What happens at the one yard line? Anybody who's a football fan knows — the defense gets stronger, man,” Damico said during a recent vigil.
Damico and others are relieved to hear of its closure, but they want to see some accountability for the alleged abuses against migrants housed in the facility.
“Our feeling is it can't come too soon, and that the reason we're seeing it shut down right now is because thousands of people, and especially family members whose loved ones are detained, have made it politically impossible to continue,” Damico told WLRN. “There needs to be a thorough and swift and deep investigation, and there needs to be accountability for what's happened to human beings inside of that abomination in the Everglades.”
The Workers Circle is now looking to expand its Freedom Vigils project around the nation, as volunteers from other states home to immigrant detention centers want to do something similar.
The group held a national Zoom call late last month with volunteers around the country from Greenwood, Indiana to Phoenix, Arizona.
“ These are regular folks, people who have never been to a protest in their life are down there because they feel their conscience does not allow them to do otherwise,” Damico said.
