detention centers

U.S. Senate hopeful Angie Nixon and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz condemned ICE officials for unlawfully detaining people for up to several days at a time in overcrowded cells, failing to provide proper medical attention and granting detainees limited access to legal counsel.

An investigation has found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies have wasted tens of millions of dollars pursuing uninformed plans to increase detention capacity, and the total will likely rise due to ongoing mismanagement. The U.S. Government Accountability Office report released Thursday documents costly problems with several initiatives ICE has pursued since President Donald Trump returned to office and ordered the mass detention and deportation of people who were in the country illegally.

A report issued Friday said that inspectors making an unannounced inspection of the site near Ochopee in January found that detention center staff could not clearly identify which detention standards they used for holding detainees on immigration-related charges. There were also concerns over small metal cages used for confinement at the site.

Rebookings of immigrants into local jails are an effort to circumvent federal rules and regulations, legal experts say. ProPublica's nationwide analysis shows that in the past year, two Florida jails had unusually high numbers of rebookings.

Critics say it is the reason why more detainees are risking their lives to protest inhumane conditions and legal rights violations, in the form of widespread hunger strikes.

The migrant detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz is closed, but much about it remains unresolved. One aspect of the South Florida facility has drawn far less attention, though: the name itself, and the long history of associating alligators with racist ideas about people of color.

ICE says ‘millions’ of immigrants have left or been deported in Trump’s crackdown. But where are the receipts?

The DeSantis administration spend spent nearly two-thirds of Florida’s emergency fund last fiscal year on fighting illegal immigration, dwarfing spending for severe weather, international rescues, and other emergency missions for which the fund was created.

South Florida immigrant advocates and families of detainees held a news conference Wednesday said they want to call attention to what they say are appalling conditions detainees are forced to endure daily while in federal custody.

Immigrant advocates allege the facility is overcrowded and that detainees are exposed to excessive heat, and have inadequate access to food, water, beds and bathrooms.

Speaking at a news conference outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building off SW 145th Avenue in southwest Broward County, several speakers said detainees have told them of inadequate access to bathrooms and beds, and severe overcrowding.

Immigrant detainees across at least 33 states allege in court documents that the government is failing to provide them with adequate medical care. An investigation by The Associated Press and KFF Health News found that people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are being denied access to doctors and medications for maladies ranging from dental pain to pregnancy to prostate cancer.