Krome Detention Center

Frigid cells, no access to medical care, and invasive cavity searches. These are just some of the conditions described in a 92-page Human Rights Watch report — focusing on Miami-based Krome and Federal detention centers — and a jail in Pompano Beach.

Cuban national Isidro Perez died in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, making him the fifth detainee to die in Florida this year.

Many South Florida immigrants fear President Donald Trump’s deportation policy. One reason: the facilities where they will likely be detained have been buffeted by decades of documented violence, sexual abuse and human rights violations.

Local media outlets in South Florida reported Thursday that the Cuban detainees are angry that they are being held without being told when they may be released and fear they may be transferred to other immigrant detention facilities outside the U.S.

As allegations swirl around the facility, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz made an unannounced visit to Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami Thursday. She said she saw disturbing conditions and did not receive straight answers.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed on Tuesday that Marie Ange Blaise, a 44-year-old Haitian woman, died in federal custody at the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach.

An ICE spokesperson acknowledged the structure, after South Florida U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilsont said she saw a “tent city” at the Krome North Service Processing Center during her visit last week.

As President Donald Trump sought to make good on his campaign pledge of mass arrests and removals of migrants, Krome, the United States' oldest immigration detention facility and one with a long history of abuse, saw its prisoner population recently swell to nearly three times its capacity of 600.

The Democratic congresswoman from Miami toured the Krome Detention Center on Thursday, telling reporters afterwards that federal immigration authorities were planning to erect a “tent city” to expand the number of detainees in a facility already overcrowded.

The little-known 2021 settlement was meant to shield some undocumented immigrants in county jails from being handed over to federal authorities if they were victims or witnesses of a crime. Getting the county to abide is more pressing now that the conditions at the Krome Detention Center are attracting widespread scrutiny — including from county Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.

The group found “degrading and inhumane treatment” that included “confining people in ‘holding’ cells that are overcapacity; people forced to sleep on a cold concrete floor “without any blankets or bedding under fluorescent lighting in unsanitary conditions, and detainees deprived the right to contact family members or attorneys to tell them their whereabouts.

Democratic U.S. Representatives have sent an angry letter to the Trump administration demanding restored oversight of the controversial Krome detention center for migrants.