Despite the public demands of immigrant rights advocates for more than a year and the more recent pleas from families of those detained, the conditions at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami have not improved for detainees inside a facility designed for criminal felons — not suspected undocumented immigrants.
Weeks after Judith Castellanos, Anisley Cortes and Annett Uset-Dumont spoke out against what they called the ‘inhumane’ treatment of their husbands inside FDC at a press conference and called for the support of elected officials, they are frustrated and devastated at a complete lack of action. No elected official has inspected the facility since the press conference.
And since telling the media of FDC’s horrific conditions, the women have shared their recorded telephone conversations with WLRN to cast a critical spotlight on the facility housing hundreds of people accused of being in the country illegally.
One husband with diabetes spoke about being denied medical attention. Another told his wife of the sweltering heat and lack of air conditioning. The other told his spouse that cells got flooded with water forcing detainees to be moved to other parts of the facility.
The three women said they are speaking out because their husbands cannot while in detention.
“I’m going to be your voice at all times, and everyone is going to find out about all the injustices they’re committing against you,” Castellanos promised her husband.
The three women have been sharing her husband’s stories since they were relocated from Krome Detention Center to FDC in June.
“Animals get treated better than this,” Cervelo Trujillo told Castellanos over the phone. “We can’t go on like this.”
Cervelo Trujillo was detained at a routine immigration appointment at Krome North Service Processing Center in January and remained there until brushfires in June forced immigration officials to move him and dozens of other detainees to FDC in June. He emigrated from Cuba in 2005, and had applied for a green card within the last year.
The conditions described by current detainees at the FDC mirror the allegations and claims in a blistering Human Rights Watch report published almost a year ago to the day. In the July 2025 report, researchers interviewed hundreds of detainees at three South Florida facilities: Krome, FDC and the Broward Transitional Center.
The report, jointly produced by Human Rights Watch, Americans for Immigrant Justice and Sanctuary of the South, found the people locked up in the three South Florida immigration facilities were living under "abusive, degrading, and in some cases life-threatening" detention.
The FDC is a federal prison that holds those convicted of crimes in federal court. It began housing hundreds of suspected undocumented immigrants in February 2025 to accommodate the large number being apprehended by ICE agents under President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement strategy.
Human Rights Watch researchers say that conditions at FDC, Krome and BTC “violate international law and appear to violate key federal government standards as well.”
“ICE’s own detention standards require humane treatment, access to medical care, and protection from abuse,” the researchers wrote. “… ICE and its contractors are failing to meet these obligations.”
The wives of three detainees say their husbands have told them of inhumane living conditions, including broken or inadequate air conditioning in peak summer heat, cockroaches in the kitchen, undercooked, inedible food and toilets that did not flush.
READ MORE: Rights groups: 'Abusive, degrading' conditions exist at South Florida immigrant detention centers
Trapped in a ‘horrible stench’
From July 24 to July 27, Marlon Cervelo Trujillo had been in lockdown alongside every other detainee in FDC. He says the guards would not let the detainees leave their cells to shower, and their cell toilet had issues flushing for weeks.
He said the guards had told the detainees that the facility was locked down due to a ‘broken elevator.’ They only left their rooms to eat at mealtime. Otherwise, they were stuck in their cells, confined to the inhumane, miserable conditions at the prison.
“We’re stuck in here. The only time [the guards] open up is to hand out the food, and then they automatically lock up the door again,” Cervelo Trujillo told his Castellanos during the lockdown. “They’re not even taking us out to shower.”
A spokesperson with Immigration and Customs and Enforcement said that because the facility was operated by the Bureau of Prisons, they were unable to comment on the conditions inside.
A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson said that they could not comment on matters relating to immigrant detentions, and referred WLRN back to ICE media officials. The BOP spokesperson did say issues with the air conditioning and water were quickly resolved earlier this month.
BOP said that the organization does not comment on ‘anecdotal incidents.’
Coupled with the lack of the boiling temperature of the facility, Cervelo Trujillo says that the lockdown trapped detainees in a stinking hell. He said that the smell of weeks-old unflushed waste was inescapable.
“They haven’t fixed the toilets,” Cervelo Trujillo said. “This horrible stench of piss seeps out from under the doors, because there’s piss, there’s shit inside, and the toilets are still left like that.”
According to BOP, FDC Miami experienced an issue with water pressure at the facility in early July, but said that the issue was resolved the following day.
A BOP spokesperson told WLRN that, “inmates were provided additional bottles of water” during the incident and that, “during the short low-pressure period, inmates maintained access to ample amounts of potable water and the ability to flush toilets.”
Detainees claim the toilet issue has been ongoing since June, and that it has not yet been fixed.
The heat is ‘torture’
During their time at FDC, Cervelo Trujillo and Daikel Dumont — the spouse of Annett Uset-Dumont —both complained to their families about other unresolved issues regarding the air conditioning and rotten, roach-infested food as well.
Dumont, a Cuban man who has lived in the U.S. for 16 years, was detained at his home in front of his wife and their child, who was three at the time. He has since spent over eight months in detention: five months at Alligator Alcatraz and three at FDC Miami.
Dumont told his wife that he served food at FDC, and saw cockroaches in the supply earlier this month. He mentioned that the food was poor quality and borderline inedible.
“I saw the cockroach on the cart where the food comes in,” Dumont told his wife on the phone. “The food isn’t any good either, it’s a joke. What they bring you here and give you is nothing but pure junk.”
Cervelo Trujillo also agreed that the food they were given was ‘inedible.’
“They brought hamburgers, and honestly the meat looked like it was raw. It even smelled bad,” said Cervelo Trujillo.
BOP has not commented on any allegations made about the quality of food inside the facility.
A BOP spokesperson did tell WLRN that there was a malfunction with one of the air conditioning’s chillers earlier this month that was quickly resolved.
“The facilities department immediately identified the issue and began repairs… both chillers are operating as intended and as they were before the identified malfunction,” a BOP spokesperson said. “During the outage, staff and inmates had access to alternative means of remaining cool, such as ceiling fans or industrial fans.”
Dumont said that he could not feel air conditioning in his cell, and that the facility’s industrial fans were no match for the heat.
“This is basically torture, because you're up almost six hours, just lying there on a piece of cardboard because the heat is suffocating,” Dumont told his wife. “We have one fan for the eighty-two or ninety-two people who are in this room.”
READ MORE: Families, advocates protest 'inhumane' conditions at downtown Miami Federal Detention Center
Dumont was transferred to Krome Detention Center last week, where he worked as a barber, according to his wife. She says his living conditions at Krome are better than what he experienced at FDC.
Medical neglect
In their calls to their wives, Dumont and Cervelo Trujillo often mentioned the inadequate medical care in the facility. They both recalled the unit only having one nurse, who would often refuse patients at night.
“The only time they’ll see you at night is if you’re really serious, otherwise they won’t treat you,” Dumont told his wife. “They say ICE didn’t send our medical records over here, or our medications. That’s their justification.”
Dumont has chronic asthma, which he told his wife he was struggling with in mid July after the guards had pepper sprayed several detainees. Cervelo Trujillo has high blood pressure as a long-term complication of COVID-19, which his wife often worries about.
Both men’s primary concern, though, was a detainee named Noslen Sendra Gonzalez. He consistently had medical issues that staff ignored, until his health became so poor that he was transferred to a different facility.
“That’s a young man who, if they don’t take action with him, is going to die in here,” said Cervelo Trujillo about Sendra Gonzalez.
Sendra Gonzalez, a Cuban immigrant from Orlando, was first detained during a routine immigration appointment in November. He was placed in Krome Detention Center, and after the brush fires in June, was moved to FDC.
Sendra Gonzalez has Type 2 Diabetes and requires access to insulin, which he and other detainees alleged inadequate and infrequent access to.
His wife, Anisley Cortes, warned FDC officials about his condition weeks before he had a medical emergency. She said her husband was previously hospitalized once for high triglycerides and twice for pancreatitis.
“It’s a critical situation. If he gets pancreatitis again he could die there,” Cortes said at a press conference a few weeks prior. “All I ask is that he is given medical attention.”
In FDC, Sendra Gonzalez had extremely high triglycerides and worsening pancreatitis. His condition was deemed to be so poor that he was moved out of the facility.
On July 22, he was transferred to Krome to receive better medical treatment. His wife said that he has been in the hospital there for over a week.
Flooded cells
A week after Dumont and Sendra Gonzalez were transferred, water began to drip into the cells of several detainees. Cervelo Trujillo, who is still detained at FDC, said that on July 29 the water flooded the floors and soaked the mattresses of at least two rooms, and the hallway outside was filled with water.
He helped a few detainees move to rooms that were not flooded. The guards had not helped the detainees, who were left to sleep on soaking wet mattresses, and for several hours after, the water was not cleaned up, he said.
“It’s completely flooded. Nobody has come by today, and we don’t know why,” Cervelo Trujillo told his wife over the phone.
The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to this claim in time for publication.
He says that between the stagnant water, detainees spitting on the ground and the cockroaches escaping to dry floors, he is worried that they might all start getting sick.
“This is filthy,” Cervelo Trujillo told his wife. “ We’re either going to kill ourselves or we’re going to die from some illness, because [the guards] don’t care about anything in here.”
