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Amnesty International released a damning report titled "Torture and enforced disappearances in the Sunshine State" documenting human rights violations that constitute torture at Florida's Everglades Detention Facility ("Alligator Alcatraz") and Krome North Service Processing Center. Based on a September 2025 research mission, the report details systematic abuse including "the box"—a 2x2-foot metal cage where detainees are shackled at wrists and ankles, chained to the ground in direct sunlight for hours without food or water as punishment, which Amnesty determined constitutes torture under international law.
At Alligator Alcatraz, conditions include overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into sleeping areas, 24-hour constant illumination designed to disrupt sleep, cameras positioned above toilets, limited shower access, exposure to insects without protection, and food "sometimes full of maggots." The facility operates outside federal oversight without basic tracking systems, keeping detainees in incommunicado detention that constitutes enforced disappearances when families and lawyers are denied information about whereabouts. Detainees reported spelling "SOS" to helicopters overhead.
At Krome, Amnesty investigators witnessed guards "violently slam a metal flap of a door to a solitary confinement room against a man's injured hand." The facility has experienced severe overcrowding, broken air conditioning, prolonged solitary confinement, and medical negligence despite on-site facilities. Four deaths occurred at Krome alone between October 2024 and December 2025.
Amy Fischer, Director of Refugee and Migrant Rights at Amnesty International USA, called the conditions "despicable and nauseating" and described Alligator Alcatraz as "a human rights disaster." Ana Piquer, Director of Amnesty International Americas, stated findings "confirm a deliberate system built to punish, dehumanize, and hide suffering." The ACLU's Bacardi Jackson called the situation "not just a policy failure, it's a moral one," describing "a costly and deadly shadow prison in the middle of the Everglades."
Governor Ron DeSantis's office dismissed the report as "a politically motivated attack" and called findings "fabrications." DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin claimed the facility "does meet federal detention standards." Amnesty International demanded immediate closure of Alligator Alcatraz, prohibition of state-run immigration detention, ban on shackling and solitary confinement, transparent investigations into torture and deaths, and redirection of detention funding to health, housing, and disaster relief.