detainee

Mahmoud Abu Foul heard his mother’s voice after eight months in Israeli detention, but could not see her face.

A 28-year-old from northern Gaza, Abu Foul was arrested from Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in late December and imprisoned in Israeli detention facilities, where he says guards tortured and beat him so severely that he lost his sight.

He was released this week as part of a United States-brokered ceasefire deal that has seen nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees let out from Israeli jails, many bearing visible signs of abuse.

Abu Foul, who had already lost his leg in a 2015 Israeli bombing, told Al Jazeera he endured relentless torture during his imprisonment. At Sde Teiman prison, a facility other detainees describe as “the prison that breaks men”, Abu Foul endured repeated beatings and torture.

One day, guards struck him on the head with such force that he fell unconscious. When he regained consciousness, he discovered he had lost his sight, he said.

“I kept asking for medical treatment, but they only gave me one type of eye drops, which did nothing,” he said. “My eyes kept tearing constantly, with discharge and pain, but no one cared.”

He tried a hunger strike to demand treatment but said prison authorities did not respond to his demands.

When Abu Foul was finally released and transferred to Nasser Hospital, he waited anxiously for his family. He had heard northern Gaza was devastated and feared the worst. Then his mother arrived.

“When I heard her voice, I hugged her tightly,” he said. “I couldn’t see her, but just hearing her was worth the whole world.”

Abu Foul now lives in a tent near ruins, still without treatment for his eyes, and is seeking help to travel abroad for medical care.

His account aligns with a growing body of evidence documenting systematic abuse in Israeli prisons. Many of the Palestinians released this week emerged emaciated or with visible injuries. One prisoner had lost nearly half his body weight during detention.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights documented testimonies from 100 former detainees held between October 2023 and 2024, finding that torture was systematic across all Israeli prison facilities, not just notorious sites like Sde Teiman.

All were held incommunicado without access to judges, lawyers or family members.

Israel has returned at least 100 bodies of Palestinians who died in detention. Medical sources told Al Jazeera they found evidence of abuse on some of the corpses, and some indicated possible executions.

“They did not die naturally, they were executed while restrained,” said Dr Munir al-Bursh, director-general of Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The United Nations estimates that at least 75 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli prisons since October 2023.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem described the prison system last year as a “network of torture camps” where detainees face systematic physical abuse, are denied food and medical care, and suffer sexual violence.

Despite hundreds of reported abuse cases since October 2023, Israeli authorities have brought indictments in only two incidents, with no prison service personnel charged, according to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), an Israeli rights group documenting torture.

Dr Ruchama Marton, founder of Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, says her decades-long campaign exposed the use of torture in Israel but has failed to stop it. “Maybe people didn’t deny it any more, but in practice it became normalized,” she told Haaretz.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the prison service, has defended the harsh treatment of Palestinian prisoners and said “summer camps and patience for the terrorists are over”.

Ben-Gvir has also been filmed taunting high-profile Palestinian political leader and detainee Marwan Barghouti.

Earlier this week, Barghouti’s son said he fears for his father’s life in Israeli prison amid reports from witnesses that he was beaten by guards last month.

In an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday, Arab Barghouti accused Israel of targeting his father because he is a unifying figure among Palestinians.

The family told media outlets this week that they had received testimonies from Palestinian detainees released as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal that Barghouti was beaten by guards in mid-September as he was being transferred between two Israeli prisons.

About 9,000 Palestinian prisoners remain in Israeli jails, many without trial or any proper legal process. Israel has denied allegations of systematic abuse but has not provided evidence to counter the claims.

The Israeli military and prison service did not respond to requests for comment.

After two years in an Israeli jail, Yousef Salem set out on a journey to his house in Gaza. The former detainee, who says he was tortured during his time in captivity, was confronted by the devastation of Israel’s onslaught when he finally arrived home. This is his story.

ORLANDO, Fla. — U.S. government lawyers say that detainees at the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” probably include people who have never been in removal proceedings, which is a direct contradiction of what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been saying since it opened in July.

Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice made that admission Thursday in a court filing arguing that the detainees at the facility in the Everglades wilderness don’t have enough in common to be certified as a class in a lawsuit over whether they’re getting proper access to attorneys.

A removal proceeding is a legal process initiated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to determine if someone should be deported from the United States.

The Justice Department attorneys wrote that the detainees at the Everglades facility have too many immigration statuses to be considered a class.

“The proposed class includes all detainees at Alligator Alcatraz, a facility that houses detainees in all stages of immigration processing — presumably including those who have never been in removal proceedings, those who will be placed into removal proceedings, those who are already subject to final orders of removal, those subject to expedited removal, and those detained for the purpose of facilitation removal from the United States pursuant to a final order of removal,” they wrote.

Since the facility opened, DeSantis has been saying publicly that each detainee has gone through the process of determining that they can’t legally be in the United States.

During a July 25 news conference outside the detention center, DeSantis said, “Everybody here is already on a final removal order.”

“They have been ordered to be removed from the country,” he added.

At a July 29 speech before a conference of the Florida Sheriffs Assn., the Republican governor said, “The people that are going to the Alligator Alcatraz are illegally in the country. They’ve all already been given a final order of removal.”

He added, “So, if you have an order to be removed, what is the possible objection to the federal government enforcing that removal order?”

DeSantis’ press office didn’t respond Monday morning to an email seeking comment.

The court filing by the Justice Department attorneys was made in a lawsuit in which civil rights groups allege the facility’s detainees have been denied proper access to attorneys in violation of their constitutional rights. The civil rights groups on Thursday asked a federal judge in Fort Myers, Fla., for a preliminary injunction that would establish stronger protections for detainees to meet with attorneys privately and share documents confidentially.

The court case is one of three lawsuits filed by environmental and civil rights groups over the detention center, which was hastily built this summer by the state of Florida and operated by private contractors and state agencies.

A federal judge in Miami ordered in August that the facility must wind down operations within two months, agreeing with environmental groups that the remote airstrip site wasn’t given a proper environmental review before it was converted into an immigration detention center. But operations continued after the judge’s preliminary injunction was put on hold in early September by an appellate court panel. At one point, the facility held more than 900 detainees, but most of them were transferred after the initial injunction. It wasn’t clear on Monday how many detainees were at the center, which was built to hold 3,000 people.

President Trump toured the facility in July and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration pushes to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations. Federal officials on Friday confirmed that Florida has been approved for a $608-million reimbursement for the costs of building and running the immigration detention center.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

The company behind the wildly popular Pokémon franchise says it doesn’t want its characters used for propaganda.

The Department of Homeland Security uploaded a Pokémon-themed montage of various ICE raids to social media earlier this week.

The connection to the beloved franchise was clear, as the recognizable theme song played, the original animation appeared and even its signature blue and yellow text materialized.

The video angered many fans. The Japanese gaming company said the federal agency was not authorized to use its original content.

“We are aware of a recent video posted by the Department of Homeland Security that includes imagery and language associated with our brand,” wrote the Pokémon Company International in a statement to The Times. “Our company was not involved in the creation or distribution of this content, and permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property.”

The Pokémon-inspired video is still live on the agency’s X account.

The posted video included the anime theme song, with the lyrics “Gotta catch ‘em all,” playing over segments of federal agents handcuffing people and imagery of a Pokémon character and the Pokéballs used to capture monsters in the game.

It concluded with several mock-ups of Pokémon playing cards with photographs of detainees, which included their full names, crimes they have committed and details about their convictions and sentencing.

The DHS’ social media feeds are full of provocative imagery and videos that borrow from popular media.

It used Jay-Z’s “Public Service Announcement” last month. It reportedly received a copyright violation complaint and had to be taken down.

In July, the DHS X account posted a video montage, which used audio from 2022’s “The Batman” and displayed a Bible verse onscreen. Paintings, from artists like Thomas Kinkade, Morgan Weistling and John Gast have also been utilized by the federal agency.

Comedian Theo Von recently complained about being used in one of these videos. DHS used a video of him saying, “Heard you got deported, dude,” as he nods his head in disappointment, in one of their video edits.

On Tuesday, he posted on X, saying, “And please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos. When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are a lot more nuanced than this video allows. Bye!”

The video has since been taken down.

The lights never dimmed and Angel Minguela Palacios couldn’t sleep. He pulled what felt like a large sheet of aluminum foil over his head, but couldn’t adjust to lying on a concrete floor and using his tennis shoes as a pillow.

He could smell unwashed bodies in the cramped room he shared with 40 detainees. He listened as men, many of them arrested at car washes or outside Home Depots, cried in the night for their loved ones.

Minguela, 48, lay in the chilly downtown Los Angeles ICE facility known as B 18 and thought about his partner of eight years and their three children. In his 10 years in the United States, he had built a secure life he had only dreamed of in Mexico, ensconced in their humble one-bedroom rented home, framed photos of the family at Christmas, his “#1 Dad” figurine. Now it was all falling apart.

The morning of Aug. 14, Minguela had been on his last delivery of the day, dropping off strawberries to a tearoom in Little Tokyo. He didn’t know that Gov. Gavin Newsom was holding a news conference there to inveigh against President Trump’s efforts to maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives through redistricting in Texas. U.S. Border Patrol agents were massing nearby, creating a show of force outside the event.

As they moved in, one agent narrowed in on Minguela’s delivery van. Soon, he was in handcuffs, arrested for overstaying a tourist visa. As his lawyer put it, Minguela became “political, collateral damage.”

Over the six days he spent in B 18, a temporary immigration processing center, Minguela watched as several detainees chose to self-deport rather than remain in detention.

A building marking is painted on a wall at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility known as “B 18.”

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

”No aguanto aqui,” the men would say. “I can’t take it here.”

The harsh conditions, Minguela said, felt intentional. He knew he needed to stay for his family. But he wondered if he’d make it.

::

Minguela fled Mexico in 2015, driven in part by violence he faced there.

In his time servicing ATMs in Ciudad Juárez, he said he was kidnapped twice and at one point stabbed by people intent on stealing the cash. After his employers cut staff, he lost his job, helping drive his decision to leave.

Minguela came to Texas on a tourist visa and left the same day to L.A. drawn by the job opportunities and its many Spanish speakers. He had little money, rented a room as he searched for employment and soon found a job at the downtown produce market.

He met the woman he calls his esposa, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, at the second job he worked in the Piñata District. They are not married but Minguela helped raise her two children and later their son, who is autistic. The children — 15, 12 and 6 — all call him Dad.

With Minguela there, his esposa said she never felt alone. He helped with the laundry and cleaning. He played Roblox with his middle son and helped his 15-year-old daughter with her homework, especially math.

“He would always make sure that we would stay on track,” his daughter said. “He would always want the best for us.”

Photos captured the life they had built in L.A. The family in San Pedro for a boat ride. Celebrating Father’s Day and birthdays with cake and balloons. At a Day of the Dead celebration on Olvera Street downtown.

Angel Minguela Palacios with his partner of eight years and their 6-year-old son.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

When immigration raids began in June, their lives suddenly narrowed. Minguela rarely went out, leaving the house only for work and errands. His daughter would warn him if she heard rumors of immigration officers near her high school, so he wouldn’t risk picking her up.

Minguela planned ahead, made copies of his keys and left money for his family in case he was grabbed by immigration agents. But he never expected it would happen to him.

On Aug. 14, his alarm went off at 1:15 a.m., as it did almost every day. He drank the coffee his wife had brought him as he headed to the produce market, where he’d worked for the same company for eight years.

Minguela helped take orders of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, before heading out to make deliveries around 8 a.m. He had around half a dozen places to hit before he would call it a day.

His partner called to warn him that she’d seen on social media that ICE officers were near one of his delivery spots. He had just been there and luckily missed them, he said.

He was relieved that the Little Tokyo tearoom was his last stop. It didn’t open until 11 a.m. He arrived 10 minutes after. He found a parking spot out front and began unloading the boxes of strawberries and one box of apples.

Minguela was adjusting wooden pallets in the van when he heard a knock. He turned to see a Border Patrol agent, who began asking him about his legal status. Rather than answer, Minguela said he pulled a red “know your rights” card out of his wallet and handed it to the agent.

Angel Minguela Palacios took this image of a federal agent looking at his identification outside of the Japanese American National Museum on Aug. 14.

(Angel Rodrigo Minguela Palacios)

The agent told him it was “of no use” and handed it back. As he held his wallet, Minguela said the agent demanded his license. After running his information, Minguela said, the agent placed him in handcuffs.

::

Inside B 18, the lights never turned off. No matter the hour, officers would call detainees out of the room for interviews, making it difficult to get uninterrupted sleep, Minguela recounted. The temperature was so cold, family members dropped off sweaters and jackets for loved ones.

The detainees were given thin, shiny emergency blankets to sleep with. He described them as “aluminum sheets.” As the days passed, he said, even those ran out for new detainees. The bathrooms were open-air, providing no privacy. Detainees went days without showering.

The conditions, he said, felt intentional. A form of “pressure to get people to sign to leave.”

Department of Homeland Security officials have previously told The Times that “any claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false.”

When Minguela closed his eyes, he saw the faces of his family. He wondered how his esposa would keep them afloat all alone. He wanted to believe this was just a nightmare from which he would soon awaken.

He replayed the morning events over and over in his head. What if he had gotten to Little Tokyo five minutes earlier? Five minutes later?

“Those days were the hardest,” Minguela said. “My first day there on the floor, I cried. It doesn’t matter that you’re men, it doesn’t matter your age. There, men cried.”

The men talked among themselves, most worrying about their wives and children. They shared where they’d been taken from. Minguela estimated that around 80% of people he was held with had been detained at car washes and Home Depot. Others had been arrested while leaving court hearings.

Minguela said he’d only been asked once, on his second day, if he wanted to self-deport. He said no. But he watched as several others gave up and signed to leave. Minguela hoped he’d be sent to Adelanto, a nearby detention center. He’d heard it might be harder to get bond in Texas or Arizona.

On the sixth day, around 4 a.m., Minguela and more than 20 others had been pulled out of the room and shackled. He only learned he was going to Arizona after overhearing a conversation between two guards.

It felt, Minguela said, “like the world came crashing down on me.”

The 25 detainees were loaded onto a white bus and spent around 10 hours on the road, before arriving at a detention center near Casa Grande. When Minguela saw it for the first time, in the desert where the temperature was hitting 110 degrees, he felt afraid. It looked like a prison.

“Ay caray, adonde nos trajeron,” he thought. Wow, where did they bring us?

::

There were around 50 people in Minguela’s wing. His cell mate, an African immigrant, had been fighting his asylum case for five months, hoping to get to his family in Seattle.

For the first time since his youth, Minguela had time to read books, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “No One Writes to the Colonel.” He read the Bible, taking comfort in Psalm 91, a prayer of trust and protection. He took online courses on CPR, computer skills and how to process his emotions.

But all the distractions, he said, didn’t change the fact that detainees were imprisoned.

“Lo que mata es el encierro,” Minguela said. “What kills you is the confinement.”

Angel Minguela Palacios spent more than a month in immigration detention.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Almost everyone there, Minguela said, had arrived with the intention of fighting their case. There were detainees who had been there for a year fighting to get asylum, others for eight months. Some had been arrested despite having work permits. Others had been scammed out of thousands of dollars by immigration lawyers who never showed up for their court hearings. Many decided to self-deport.

If he wasn’t granted bond, Minguela told his partner he feared he might do that in a moment of desperation.

Minguela lay in his darkened cell, reflecting on moments when he had arrived home, tired from work and traffic, and scolded his children about minor messes. About times he’d argued with his wife and given her the silent treatment. He made promises to God to be an even better husband and father. He asked that God help his lawyer on his case and to give him a fair judge.

Minguela had his bond hearing Sept 9. He was aided by the fact that he had entered the country lawfully, providing the judge the ability to either grant or deny him bond.

Alex Galvez, Minguela’s lawyer, told the judge about his client’s children. He pointed out that Minguela didn’t have a criminal record and was gainfully employed, the primary breadwinner for his family. Galvez submitted 16 letters of recommendation for his client.

Angel Minguela Palacios beams at his 6-year-old son.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

When the government lawyer referred to Minguela as a flight risk, Galvez said, the judge appeared skeptical, pointing out that he’d been paying tens of thousands of dollars in taxes for the last 10 years.

The judge granted a $1,500 bond. Minguela’s employers at the produce company paid it. When Minguela was pulled out of his cell on the night of Sept. 17, the other detainees applauded.

“Bravo,” they shouted. “Echale ganas.” Give it your all.

::

A crowd of people waited to greet Minguela as soon as he stepped off a Greyhound bus at Union Station in downtown L.A. on Thursday night. His partner and their three children all wore black shirts that read “Welcome Home.”

Minguela’s employer, Martha Franco, her son, Carlos Franco, and her nephew held “Welcome Back” balloons and flowers.

“He’s coming,” the children cried, when the bus groaned to a halt at 9:35 p.m. When Minguela spotted the waiting crowd, he beamed. His youngest son jumped up and down with anticipation as he stepped off the bus.

“Estas contento,” Minguela asked the boy. “Are you happy?”

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He held his esposa tight, kissing her on the cheeks, the forehead and the lips.

Minguela knows his release is just a step in the journey. His lawyer plans to file for cancellation of his removal and hopes to secure him a work permit. Minguela said he wants other immigrants to know that “there’s hope and not to despair.”

“Have faith,” Minguela said.

When Minguela arrived home after 10 p.m., he clasped his face in surprise as he was greeted by more than a hundred red, gold and black balloons. Signs strung up around the living room read “God loves you” and “Welcome home we missed you so much.”

His partner had decorated and bought everything to make ceviche and albondigas to celebrate his return. But she hadn’t had time that day to cook. Instead, she bought him one of his favorites in his adopted home.

An In-N-Out Double-Double burger and fries.

When a door slammed shut in the childhood home of Andry Hernández Romero, he wasn’t just startled. He winced, recoiling from the noise.

Nearly a month had passed since Hernández Romero, a 32-year-old makeup artist, and 251 other Venezuelans were released from a notorious Salvadoran mega-prison.

In a Zoom interview in August from Venezuela, Hernández Romero listed the ways in which the trauma of the ordeal still manifests itself.

“When doors are slammed — did you notice [my reaction] when the door made noise just now?” he said. “I can’t stand keys. Being touched when I’m asleep. If I see an officer with cuffs in their hand, I get scared and nervous.”

Trump administration officials accused the Venezuelan men of being members of the transnational gang Tren de Aragua and a national security threat, though many, including Hernández Romero, had no criminal histories in the U.S. or Venezuela.

While he was confined, with no access to his attorneys or the news, Hernández Romero had no idea he had become a poster child for the movement to free the prisoners.

“Before I was Andry the makeup artist, Andry the stylist, Andry the designer,” he said. “I was somewhat recognized, but not as directly. Right now, if you type my name into Google, TikTok, YouTube — any platform — my entire life shows up.”

Days after he was sent to El Salvador on March 15, CBS News published a leaked deportation manifest with his name on it. His lawyer Lindsay Toczylowski, who co-founded the Los Angeles-based Immigrant Defenders Law Center, denounced his removal on “The Rachel Maddow Show” and a “60 Minutes” expose.

In the “60 Minutes” episode, Time photojournalist Philip Holsinger recounted hearing a man at the prison cry for his mother, saying, “I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a stylist,” while prison guards slapped him and shaved his head.

Outrage grew. On social media, users declared him disappeared, asking, “Is Andry Hernández Romero alive?”

Activists made signs and banners demanding the federal government “FREE ANDRY.” During Pride Month, the Human Rights Campaign held a rally about him in Washington, D.C. The New Queens Pride Parade in New York named him honorary grand marshal.

Congressional Democrats traveled to El Salvador to push for information about the detainees and came back empty-handed.

“Let’s get real for a moment,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said in an April 9 video on X. The video cut to a glamour shot of Hernández Romero peering from behind three smoldering makeup brushes.

“When was the last time you saw a gay makeup artist in a transnational gang?” Torres said.

Hernández Romero walks through a market in his hometown of Capacho Nuevo.

Hernández Romero shows the crown tattoos that U.S. authorities claimed linked him to the Tren de Aragua gang.

Hernández Romero fled Venezuela after facing persecution for his sexuality and political views, according to his lawyers.

He entered the U.S. legally at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Aug. 29, 2024, after obtaining an appointment through CBP One, the asylum application process used in the Biden administration. The elation of getting through lasted just a few minutes, he said.

Hernández Romero spent six months at the Otay Mesa Detention Center. He had passed a “credible fear” interview — the first step in the asylum process — but immigration officials had lasered in on two of his nine tattoos: a crown on each wrist with “Mom” and “Dad” in English.

Immigrant detainees are given blue, orange or red uniforms, depending on their classification level. A guard once explained that detainees wearing orange, like him, could be criminals. Hernández Romero said he replied, “Is being a gay a crime? Or is doing makeup a crime?”

When his deportation flight landed in El Salvador, he saw tanks and officials dressed in all black, carrying big guns.

A Salvadoran man got off first — Kilmar Abrego García, whose case became a focus of controversy after federal officials acknowledged he had been wrongly deported.

Eight Venezuelan women got off next, but Salvadoran officials rejected them and they were led back onto the plane. Hernández Romero said the remaining Venezuelans felt relieved, thinking they too would be rejected.

Instead, they ended up in prison.

Hernández Romero does the makeup for Gabriela Mora, the fiancee of his fellow prisoner Carlos Uzcátegui, hours before their civil wedding in the town of Lobatera.

“I saw myself hit, I saw myself carried by two officials with my head toward the ground, receiving blows and kicks,” Hernández Romero said. “After that reality kind of strikes me: I was in a cell in El Salvador, in a maximum-security prison with nine other people and asking myself, ‘What am I doing here?’”

As a stylist, he said, having his hair shaved off was particularly devastating. Even worse were the accompanying blows and homophobic insults.

He remembers the photographer snapping shots of him and feeling the sting of his privacy being violated. Now, he understands their significance: “It’s thanks to those photos that we are now back in our homes.”

At the prison, guards taunted them, Hernández Romero said, telling them, “You all are going to die here.”

Hernández Romero befriended Carlos Uzcátegui, 32, who was held in the cell across the hall. Prisoners weren’t allowed to talk with people outside their cells, but the pair quietly got to know each other whenever the guards were distracted.

Uzcátegui said he was also detained for having a crown tattoo and for another depicting three stars, one for each of his younger sisters.

A prisoner is moved by a guard at the Terrorist Confinement Center, a high-security prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26. (Alex Brandon, Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

As prisoners looks on, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center on March 26. (Alex Brandon, Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Hernández Romero said he noticed that some of the guards would stare at him when he showered. He told reporters that guards took him to a small, windowless room known as “La Isla,” or “The Island,” after noticing him bathing with a bucket outside of designated hours. There, he said, he was beaten by three guards wearing masks and forced to perform oral sex on one of them, according to NPR and other outlets.

Hernández Romero no longer wishes to talk about the details of the alleged abuse. His lawyers are looking into available legal options.

“Perhaps those people will escape earthly justice, the justice of man, but when it comes to the justice of our Father God, no one escapes,” he said. “Life is a restaurant — no one leaves without paying.”

Uzcátegui said guards once pulled out his toenails and denied him medication despite a high fever. He had already showered, but as his fever worsened he took a second shower, which wasn’t allowed.

He said guards pushed him down, kicked him repeatedly in the stomach, then left him in “La Isla” for three days.

In July, rumors began circulating in the prison that the Venezuelans might be released, but the detainees didn’t believe the talk until the pastor who gave their daily sermon appeared uncharacteristically emotional. He told them: “The miracle is done. Tomorrow is a new day for you all.”

Uzcátegui remained unconvinced. That night, he couldn’t sleep because of the noise of people moving around the prison. He said usually that meant that guards would enter their cell block early in the morning to beat them.

Hernández Romero noticed his friend was restless. “We’re leaving today,” he said.

“I don’t believe it,” Uzcátegui replied. “It’s always the same.”

Hernández Romero knew they had spent 125 days imprisoned because when any detainee went for a medical consult, they would unobtrusively note the calendar in the room and report back to the group. The detainees would then mark the day on their metal bed frames using soap.

On July 18, buses arrived at the prison at 3 a.m. to take the Venezuelans to the airport. Officials called out Hernández Romero and Arturo Suárez-Trejo, a singer whose case had also drawn public attention, for individual photos. Hernández Romero said they were puzzled but obliged.

Migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown arrive at Simon Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on July 18.

(Ariana Cubillos / Associated Press)

When their flight touched down, an official told them: “Welcome to Venezuela.” Walking down the plane steps, Hernández Romero felt the Caribbean breeze on his face and thanked God.

A few days later, he was back in his hometown, Capacho Nuevo, hugging his parents and brother in the center of a swarm of journalists and supporters chanting his name.

“I left home with a suitcase full of dreams, with dreams of helping my people, of helping my family, but unfortunately, that suitcase of dreams turned into a suitcase of nightmares,” he told reporters there.

Hernández Romero said he wants to see his name cleared. For him, justice would mean “that the people who kidnapped us and unfairly blamed us should pay.”

President Trump had invoked an 18th century wartime law to quickly remove many of the Venezuelans to El Salvador in March. In a 2-1 decision on Sept. 2, a panel of judges from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the administration acted unlawfully, saying there has been “no invasion or predatory incursion.”

Trump administration officials have told a federal judge that they would facilitate the return of Venezuelans to the U.S. if they wish to continue the asylum proceedings that were dismissed after they were sent to El Salvador. If there’s another chance to fulfill his dreams, Hernández Romero said he’s “not closed off to anything.”

Uzcátegui sees it differently. After everything he went through, he said, he probably would not go back.

Now he suffers from nightmares that it’s happening again. “Despite everything, you end up feeling like it’s not true that we’re out of there,” he said. “You wake up thinking you’re still there.”

Carlos Uzcátegui exchanges vows with Gabriela Mora during their wedding in August as Hernández Romero, right, in cap, looks on.

As he restarts his career, Hernández Romero is redeveloping a client list as a makeup artist. Last month, he worked a particularly special wedding: Uzcátegui’s. He did makeup for his friend’s bride, Gabriela Mora.

“He lived the same things I did in there,” Uzcátegui said. “It was like knowing that we are finally free — that despite all the things we talked about that we never thought would happen, that friendship remains. We’re like family.”

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s president said Thursday that Korean companies probably will hesitate to make further investments in the United States unless Washington improves its visa system for their employees, as U.S. authorities released hundreds of workers who were detained at a Georgia factory site last week.

In a news conference marking 100 days in office, Lee Jae Myung called for improvements in the U.S. visa system as he spoke about the Sept. 4 immigration raid that resulted in the arrest of more than 300 South Korean workers at a battery factory under construction at Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant west of Savannah.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry later confirmed that U.S. authorities had released the 330 detainees — 316 of them South Koreans — and that they were being transported by buses to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport, where they will board a charter flight scheduled to arrive in South Korea on Friday afternoon. The group also includes 10 Chinese nationals, three Japanese nationals and one Indonesian.

The massive roundup and U.S. authorities’ release of video showing some workers being chained and taken away sparked widespread anger and a sense of betrayal in South Korea. The raid came less than two weeks after a summit between President Trump and Lee, and just weeks after the countries reached a July agreement that spared South Korea from the Trump administration’s highest tariffs — but only after Seoul pledged $350 billion in new U.S. investments, against the backdrop of a decaying job market at home.

Lawmakers from both Lee’s Liberal Democratic Party and the conservative opposition decried the detentions as outrageous and heavy-handed, while South Korea’s biggest newspaper compared the raid to a “rabbit hunt” executed by U.S. immigration authorities in a zeal to meet an alleged White House goal of 3,000 arrests a day.

During the news conference, Lee said South Korean and U.S. officials are discussing a possible improvement to the U.S. visa system, adding that under the current system South Korean companies “can’t help hesitating a lot” about making direct investments in the U.S.

Lee: ‘It’s not like these are long-term workers’

U.S. authorities said some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others entered legally but had expired visas or entered on visa waivers that prohibited them from working.

But South Korean officials expressed frustration that Washington has yet to act on Seoul’s years-long demand to ensure a visa system to accommodate skilled Korean workers, though it has been pressing South Korea to expand U.S. industrial investments.

South Korean companies have been mostly relying on short-term visitor visas or Electronic System for Travel Authorization to send workers who are needed to launch manufacturing sites and handle other setup tasks, a practice that had been largely tolerated for years.

Lee said that whether Washington establishes a visa system allowing South Korean companies to send skilled workers to industrial sites will have a “major impact” on future South Korean investments in America.

“It’s not like these are long-term workers. When you build a factory or install equipment at a factory, you need technicians, but the United States doesn’t have that workforce and yet they won’t issue visas to let our people stay and do the work,” he said.

“If that’s not possible, then establishing a local factory in the United States will either come with severe disadvantages or become very difficult for our companies. They will wonder whether they should even do it,” Lee added.

Lee said the raid showed a “cultural difference” between the two countries in how they handle immigration issues.

“In South Korea, we see Americans coming on tourist visas to teach English at private cram schools — they do it all the time, and we don’t think much of it, it’s just something you accept,” Lee said.

“But the United States clearly doesn’t see things that way. On top of that, U.S. immigration authorities pledge to strictly forbid illegal immigration and employment and carry out deportations in various aggressive ways, and our people happened to be caught in one of those cases,” he added.

South Korea, U.S. agree on working group to settle visa issues

After a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Wednesday that U.S. officials have agreed to allow the workers detained in Georgia to later return to finish their work at the site. He added that the countries agreed to set up a joint working group for discussions on creating a new visa category to make it easier for South Korean companies to send their staff to work in the United States.

Before leaving for the U.S. on Monday, Cho said more South Korean workers in the U.S. could be vulnerable to future crackdowns if the visa issue isn’t resolved, but said Seoul does not yet have an estimate of how many might be at risk.

The State Department announced Thursday that Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau would visit Seoul this weekend as part of a three-nation Asia-Pacific trip that will also include Papua New Guinea and the Marshall Islands.

The Georgia battery plant is one of more than 20 major industrial sites that South Korean companies are building in the United States. They include other battery factories in Georgia and several other states, a semiconductor plant in Texas and a shipbuilding project in Philadelphia, a sector that Trump has frequently highlighted in relation to South Korea.

Min Jeonghun, a professor at South Korea’s National Diplomatic Academy, said it’s chiefly up to the United States to resolve the issue, either through legislation or by taking administrative steps to expand short-term work visas for training purposes.

Without an update in U.S. visa policies, Min said, “Korean companies will no longer be able to send their workers to the United States, causing inevitable delays in the expansion of facilities and other production activities, and the harm will boomerang back to the U.S. economy.”

Hyung-jin and Tong-Hyung write for the Associated Press. Tong-Hyung reported from Seoul.

Hundreds of federal agents descended on a sprawling site where Hyundai manufactures electric vehicles in Georgia and detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals.

This is the latest in a long line of workplace raids conducted as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. But the one on Thursday is distinct because of its large size and the fact that it targeted a manufacturing site state officials have long called Georgia’s largest economic development project.

The detainment of South Korean nationals also sets it apart, as they are rarely caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which data show has focused on Latinos.

Video released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday showed a caravan of vehicles driving up to the site and then federal agents directing workers to line up outside. Some detainees were ordered to put their hands up against a bus as they were frisked and then shackled around their hands, ankles and waist. Others had plastic ties around their wrists as they boarded a Georgia inmate-transfer bus.

Here are some things to know about the raid and the people impacted:

The workers detained

South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Saturday that more than 300 South Koreans were among the 475 people detained.

Some of them worked for the plant operated by HL-GA Battery Co., a joint venture by Hyundai and LG Energy Solution that is set to open next year, while others were employed by contractors and subcontractors at the construction site, according to Steven Schrank, the lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations.

He said that some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others had entered the country legally but had expired visas or had entered on a visa waiver that prohibited them from working.

But an immigration attorney representing two of the detained workers said his clients arrived from South Korea under a visa waiver program that allows them to travel for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa.

Attorney Charles Kuck said one of his clients has been in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, while the other has been in the country for about 45 days, adding that they had been planning to return home soon.

The detainees also included a lawful permanent resident who was kept in custody for having a prior record involving firearm and drug offenses, since committing a crime of “moral turpitude” can put their status in jeopardy, said Lindsay Williams, a public affairs officer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, on Saturday.

Williams denied reports that U.S. citizens had been detained at the site, since “once citizens have identified themselves, we have no authority.”

Hyundai Motor Co. said in a statement Friday that none of its employees had been detained as far as it knew and that it is reviewing its practices to make sure suppliers and subcontractors follow U.S. employment laws. LG told the Associated Press that it couldn’t immediately confirm how many of its employees or Hyundai workers had been detained.

The South Korean government expressed “concern and regret” over the operation targeting its citizens and is sending diplomats to the site.

“The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be unjustly infringed in the process of U.S. law enforcement,” South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jaewoong said in a televised statement from Seoul.

Most of the people detained have been taken to an immigration detention center in Folkston, Ga., near the Florida state line. None of them have been charged with any crimes yet, Schrank said, but the investigation is ongoing.

Family members and friends of the detainees were having a hard time locating them or figuring out how to get in touch with them, James Woo, communications director for the advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, said Saturday in an email.

Woo added that many of the families were in South Korea because many of the detainees were in the United States only for business purposes.

Raid is the result of a months-long investigation

The raid was the result of a months-long investigation into allegations of illegal hiring at the site, Schrank said.

In a search warrant and related affidavits, agents sought items including employment records for current and former workers, timecards and video and photos of workers.

Court records filed last week indicated that prosecutors do not know who hired what it called “hundreds of illegal aliens.” The identity of the “actual company or contractor hiring the illegal aliens is currently unknown,” the U.S. attorney’s office wrote in a Thursday court filing.

The sprawling manufacturing site

The raid targeted a manufacturing site widely considered one of Georgia’s largest and most high-profile.

Hyundai Motor Group started manufacturing EVs at the $7.6-billion plant a year ago. Today, the site employs about 1,200 people in a largely rural area about 25 miles west of Savannah.

Agents homed in on an adjacent plant that is still under construction at which Hyundai has partnered with LG Energy Solution to produce batteries that power EVs.

The Hyundai site is in Bryan County, which saw its population increase by more than a quarter in the early 2020s and stood at almost 47,000 residents in 2023, the most recent year data are available. The county’s Asian population went from 1.5% in 2018 to 2.2% in 2023, and the growth was primarily among people of Indian descent, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.

Raid was the ‘largest single site enforcement operation’

The Trump administration has targeted an array of businesses in its workplace raids, including farms, construction sites, restaurants, car washes and auto repair shops. But most have been smaller, including a raid the same day as the Georgia one in which federal officers took away dozens of workers from a snack-bar manufacturer in Cato, N.Y.

Other recent high-profile raids have included one in July targeting Glass House Farms, a legal marijuana farm in Camarillo. More than 360 people were arrested in one of the largest raids since Trump took office in January. Another took place at an Omaha meat production plant and involved dozens of workers being taken away.

Schrank described the one in Georgia as the “largest single site enforcement operation” in the agency’s two-decade history.

The majority of the people detained are Koreans. During the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, 2024, 46 Koreans were deported out of more than 270,000 removals for all nationalities, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and other state Republican officials, who had courted Hyundai and celebrated the EV plant’s opening, issued statements Friday saying all employers in the state were expected to follow the law.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta described the raid in a joint statement as “unacceptable.”

“Our communities know the workers targeted at Hyundai are everyday people who are trying to feed their families, build stronger communities, and work toward a better future,” the statement said.

Sammie Rentz opened the Viet Huong Supermarket less than 3 miles from the Hyundai site six months ago and said he worries business may not bounce back after falling off sharply since the raid.

“I’m concerned. Koreans are very proud people, and I bet they’re not appreciating what just happened. I’m worried about them cutting and running, or starting an exit strategy,” he said.

Ellabell resident Tanya Cox, who lives less than a mile from the Hyundai site, said she had no ill feelings toward Korean nationals or other immigrant workers at the site. But few neighbors were employed there, and she felt like more construction jobs at the battery plant should have gone to local residents.

“I don’t see how it’s brought a lot of jobs to our community or nearby communities,” Cox said.

Golden writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mike Schneider in Orlando, Fla., contributed to this report.

NEW ORLEANS — A federal appeals court has vacated a ruling that a Texas law giving police broad powers to arrest migrants suspected of illegally entering the U.S. was unconstitutional.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday vacated a ruling by a three-judge panel, and now the full court will consider whether the law can take effect.

The Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 4 in 2023, but a federal judge in Texas ruled the law unconstitutional. Texas appealed that ruling.

Under the proposed law, state law enforcement officers could arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally. Once in custody, detainees could agree to a Texas judge’s order to leave the country or face a misdemeanor charge of entering the U.S. illegally. Migrants who don’t leave after being ordered to do so could be arrested again and charged with a more serious felony.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a social media post Friday that the court’s decision was a “hopeful sign.”

WASHINGTON — Mattresses on the floor, next to bunk beds, in meeting rooms and gymnasiums. No access to a bathroom or drinking water. Hourlong lines to buy food at the commissary or to make a phone call.

These are some of the conditions described by lawyers and the people held at immigrant detention facilities around the country over the last few months. The number of detained immigrants surpassed a record 60,000 this month. A Los Angeles Times analysis of public data shows that more than a third of ICE detainees have spent time in an overcapacity dedicated detention center this year.

In the first half of the year, at least 19 out of 49 dedicated detention facilities exceeded their rated bed capacity and many more holding facilities and local jails exceeded their agreed-upon immigrant detainee capacity. During the height of arrest activity in June, facilities that were used to operating with plenty of available beds suddenly found themselves responsible for the meals, medical attention, safety and sleeping space for four times as many detainees as they had the previous year.

“There are so many things we’ve seen before — poor food quality, abuse by guards, not having clean clothes or underwear, not getting hygiene products,” said Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network, a coalition that aims to abolish immigrant detention. “But the scale at which it’s happening feels greater, because it’s happening everywhere and people are sleeping on floors.”

Shah said there’s no semblance of dignity now. “I’ve been doing this for many years; I don’t think I even had the imagination of it getting this bad,” she added.

Shah said conditions have deteriorated in part because of how quickly this administration scaled up arrests. It took the first Trump administration more than two years to reach its peak of about 55,0000 detainees in 2019.

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the allegations about inhumane detention conditions false and a “hoax.” She said the agency has significantly expanded detention space in places such as Indiana and Nebraska and is working to rapidly remove detainees from those facilities to their countries of origin.

McLaughlin emphasized that the department provides comprehensive medical care, but did not respond to questions about other conditions.

Detainees do stretches outdoors as a helicopter flies overhead at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Krome detention center in Miami on July 4, 2025.

(Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press)

At the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, the maximum number of detainees in a day in 2024 was 615, four more than the rated bed capacity of 611. In late June of this year, the detainee population reached 1,961, more than three times the capacity. The facility, which is near the Everglades, spent 161 days in the beginning of the year with more people to house than beds.

Miami attorney Katie Blankenship of the legal aid organization Sanctuary of the South represents people detained at Krome. Last month, she saw nine Black men piled into a visitation room, surrounded with glass windows, that holds a small table and four chairs. They had pushed the table against the wall and spread a cardboard box flat across the floor, where they were taking turns sleeping.

The men had no access to a bathroom or drinking water. They stood because there was no room to sit.

Blankenship said three of the men put their documents up to the window so she could better understand their cases. All had overstayed their visas and were detained as part of an immigration enforcement action, not criminal proceedings.

Another time, Blankenship said, she saw an elderly man cramped up in pain, unable to move, on the floor of a bigger room. Other men put chairs together and lifted him so he could rest more comfortably while guards looked on, she said.

Blankenship visits often enough that people held in the visitation and holding rooms recognize her as a lawyer whenever she walks by. They bang on the glass, yell out their identification numbers and plead for help, she said.

“These are images that won’t leave me,” Blankenship said. “It’s dystopian.”

Krome is unique in the dramatic fluctuation of its detainee population. On Feb. 18, the facility saw its biggest single-day increase. A total of 521 individuals were booked in, most transferred from hold rooms across the state, including Orlando and Tampa. Hold rooms are temporary spaces for detainees to await further processing for transfers, medical treatment or other movement into or out of a facility. They are to be used to hold individuals for no more than 12 hours.

On the day after its huge influx, Krome received a waiver exempting the facility from the requirement to log hold room activity. But it never resumed the logs. Homeland Security did not respond to a request for an explanation of the exception.

After reaching their first peak of 1,764 on March 16, the trend reversed.

Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) visited Krome on April 24. In the weeks before the visit, hundreds of detainees were transferred out. Most were moved to other facilities in Florida, some to Texas and Louisiana.

“When those lawmakers came around, they got rid of a whole bunch of detainees,” said Blankenship’s client Mopvens Louisdor.

The 30-year-old man from Haiti said conditions started to deteriorate around March as hundreds of extra people were packed into the facility.

Staffers are so overwhelmed that for detainees who can’t leave their cells for meals, he said, “by the time food gets to us, it’s cold.”

Also during this time, from April 29 through May 1, the facility underwent a compliance inspection conducted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Detention Oversight. Despite the dramatic reduction in the population, the inspection found several issues with crowding and meals. Some rooms exceeded the 25-person capacity for each and some hold times were nearly double the 12-hour limit. Inspectors observed detainees sleeping on the hold room floors without pillows or blankets. Staffers had not recorded offering a meal to the detainees in the hold rooms for more than six hours.

Hold rooms are not designed for long waits

ICE detention standards require just 7 square feet of unencumbered space for each detainee. Seating must provide 18 inches of space per detainee.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sanitary and medical attention were also areas of concern noted in the inspection. In most units, there were too many detainees for the number of toilets, showers and sinks. Some medical records showed that staffers failed to complete required mental and medical health screenings for new arrivals, and failed to complete tuberculosis screenings.

Detainees have tested positive for tuberculosis at facilities such as the Anchorage Correctional Complex in Alaska and the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California. McLaughlin, the Homeland Security assistant secretary, said that detainees are screened for tuberculosis within 12 hours of arrival and that anyone who refuses a test is isolated as a precaution.

“It is a long-standing practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody,” she said. “This includes medical, dental, and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.”

Facility administrators built a tented area outside the main building to process arriving detainees, but it wasn’t enough to alleviate the overcrowding, Louisdor said. Earlier this month, areas with space for around 65 detainees were holding more than 100, with cots spread across the floor between bunk beds.

Over-capacity facilities can feel extremely cramped

Bed capacity ratings are based on facility design. Guidelines require 50 square feet of space for each individual. When buildings designed to those specifications go over their rated capacity, there is not enough room to house additional detainees safely and comfortably.

American Correctional Association and Immigration and Customs Enforcement

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Louisdor said a young man who uses a wheelchair had resorted to relieving himself in a water bottle because staffers weren’t available to escort him to the restroom.

During the daily hour that detainees are allowed outside for recreation, 300 people stood shoulder to shoulder, he said, making it difficult to get enough exercise. When fights occasionally broke out, guards could do little to stop them, he said.

The line to buy food or hygiene products at the commissary was so long that sometimes detainees left empty-handed.

Louisdor said he has bipolar disorder, for which he takes medication. The day he had a court hearing, the staff mistakenly gave him double the dosage, leaving him unable to stand.

Since then, Louisdor said, conditions have slightly improved, though dormitories are still substantially overcrowded.

In California, detainees and lawyers similarly reported that medical care has deteriorated.

Tracy Crowley, a staff attorney at Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said clients with serious conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and cancer don’t receive their medication some days.

Cells that house up to eight people are packed with 11. With air conditioning blasting all night, detainees have told her the floor is cold and they have gotten sick. Another common complaint, she said, is that clothes and bedding are so dirty that some clients are getting rashes all over their bodies, making it difficult to sleep.

Luis at Chicano Park in San Diego on Aug. 23, 2025.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

One such client is Luis, a 40-year-old from Colombia who was arrested in May at the immigration court in San Diego after a hearing over his pending asylum petition. Luis asked to be identified by his middle name out of concern over his legal case.

When he first arrived at Otay Mesa Detention Center, Luis said, the facility was already filled to the maximum capacity. By the time he left June 30, it was overcrowded. Rooms that slept six suddenly had 10 people. Mattresses were placed in a mixed-use room and in the gym.

Luis developed a rash, but at the medical clinic he was given allergy medication and sleeping pills. The infection continued until finally he showed it over a video call to his mother, who had worked in public health, and she told him to request an anti-fungal cream.

Luis was held at Otay Mesa Detention Center after his May arrest. It was at capacity when he arrived but by the time he left in June, it was overcrowded, he said.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Other detainees often complained to Luis that their medication doses were incomplete or missing, including two men in his dorm who took anti-psychotic medication.

“They would get stressed out, start to fight — everything irritated them,” he said. “That affected all of us.”

Crowley said the facility doesn’t have the infrastructure or staff to hold as many people as are there now. The legal system also can’t process them in a timely manner, she said, forcing people to wait months for a hearing.

The administration’s push to detain more people is only compounding existing issues, Crowley said.

“They’re self-imposing the limit, and most of the people involved in that decision-making are financially incentivized to house more and more people,” she said. “Where is the limit with this administration?”

Members of the California National Guard load a truck outside the ICE Processing Center in Adelanto, Calif., on July 11, 2025.

(Patrick T. Fallon / AFP/Getty Images)

Other facilities in California faced similar challenges. At the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, the number of detainees soared to 1,000 from 300 over a week in June, prompting an outcry over deteriorated conditions.

As of July 29, Adelanto held 1,640 detainees. The Desert View Annex, an adjacent facility also operated by the GEO Group, held 451.

Disability Rights California toured the facility and interviewed staffers and 18 people held there. The advocacy organization released a report last month detailing its findings, including substantial delays in meal distribution, a shortage of drinking water, and laundry washing delays, leading many detainees to remain in soiled clothing for long periods.

In a letter released last month, 85 Adelanto detainees wrote, “They always serve the food cold … sometimes we don’t have water for 2 to 7 hours and they said to us to drink from the sink.”

At the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., Rodney Taylor, a double amputee, was rendered nearly immobile.

Taylor, who was born in Liberia, uses electronic prosthetic legs that must be charged and can’t get wet. The outlets in his dormitory were inoperable, and because of the overcrowding and short-staffing, guards couldn’t take him to another area to plug them in, said his fiancee, Mildred Pierre.

“When they’re not charged they’re super heavy, like dead weight,” she said. It becomes difficult to balance without falling.

Pierre said the air conditioning in his unit didn’t work for two months, causing water to puddle on the floor. Taylor feared he would slip while walking and fall — which happened once in May — and damage the expensive prosthetics.

Last month, Taylor refused to participate in the daily detainee count, telling guards he wouldn’t leave his cell unless they agreed to leave the cell doors open to let the air circulate.

“They didn’t take him to charge his legs and now they wanted him to walk through water and go in a hot room,” Pierre recalled. “He said no — he stood his ground.”

Several guards surrounded him, yelling, Pierre said. They placed him in solitary confinement for three days as punishment, she said.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida taxpayers could be on the hook for $218 million the state spent to convert a remote training airport in the Everglades into an immigration detention center dubbed “ Alligator Alcatraz.”

The facility may soon be empty as a judge upheld her decision late Wednesday ordering operations to wind down indefinitely.

Shutting down the facility for the time being would cost the state $15 million to $20 million immediately, and it would cost another $15 million to $20 million to reinstall structures if Florida is allowed to reopen it, according to court filings by the state.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management will lose most of the value of the $218 million it has invested in making the airport suitable for a detention center, a state official said in court papers.

Built in just a few days, the facility consists of chain-link cages surrounding large white tents filled with rows of bunk beds. As of late July, state officials had already signed more than $245 million in contracts for building and operating the facility, which officially opened July 1.

President Trump toured the facility last month and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration races to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations.

The center has been plagued by reports of unsanitary conditions and detainees being cut off from the legal system.

It’s also facing several legal challenges, including one that U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ruled on late Wednesday. She denied requests to pause her order to wind down operations, after agreeing last week with environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe that the state and federal defendants didn’t follow federal law requiring an environmental review for the detention center in the middle of sensitive wetlands.

The Miami judge said the number of detainees was already dwindling, and the federal government’s “immigration enforcement goals will not be thwarted by a pause in operations.” That’s despite Department of Homeland Security lawyers saying the judge’s order would disrupt that enforcement.

When asked, the Department of Homeland Security wouldn’t say how many detainees remained and how many had been moved out since the judge’s temporary injunction last week.

“DHS is complying with this order and moving detainees to other facilities,” the department said Thursday in an emailed statement.

Environmental activist Jessica Namath, who has kept a nearly constant watch outside the facility’s gates, said Thursday that fellow observers had seen white tents hauled out but no signs of the removal of Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers or portable bathrooms.

“It definitely seems like they have been winding down operations,” Namath said.

Based on publicly available contract data, the Associated Press estimated the state allocated $50 million for the bathrooms. Detainees and advocates have described toilets that don’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, although officials dispute such descriptions.

The facility was already being emptied of detainees as of last week, according to an email exchange shared with the AP on Wednesday. The executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Kevin Guthrie, said on Aug. 22 “we are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days,” in a message to a rabbi about chaplaincy services.

Funding is central to the federal government’s arguments that Williams’ order should be overturned by an appellate court.

Homeland Security attorneys said in a court filing this week that federal environmental law doesn’t apply to a state like Florida, and the federal government isn’t responsible for the detention center since it hasn’t spent a cent to build or operate the facility, even though Florida is seeking some federal grant money to fund a portion of the detention center.

“No final federal funding decisions have been made,” the attorneys said.

Almost two dozen Republican-led states also urged the appellate court to overturn the order. The 22 states argued in another court filing that the judge overstepped her authority and that the federal environmental laws applied only to the federal agencies, not the state of Florida.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ’ administration is preparing to open a second immigration detention facility dubbed “Deportation Depot” at a state prison in north Florida.

Civil rights groups filed a second lawsuit last month against the state and federal governments over practices at the Everglades facility, claiming detainees were denied access to the legal system.

A third lawsuit by civil rights groups on Aug. 22 described “severe problems” at the facility that were “previously unheard-of in the immigration system.”

Schneider and Payne write for the Associated Press.

MIAMI — A federal judge has put a stop to further expansion of the immigration detention center built in the Florida Everglades and dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz, ordering that its operations wind down within two months.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami wrote in her 82-page order late Thursday that Florida officials never sufficiently explained why an immigration detention center needed to be located in the middle of sensitive wetlands cherished by environmentalists and outdoors people.

She also said that state and federal authorities never undertook an environmental review as required by federal law before Florida officials hastily built the detention camp that they championed as a model for President Trump’s immigration policies. That failure adversely affected the “recreational, conservational, and aesthetic interests” of the environmental groups and Miccosukee Tribe, which brought the lawsuit, she said.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday reacted to the ruling, saying he would not be deterred by “an activist judge.”

“We knew this would be something that would likely happen,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Panama City. “We will respond accordingly. You either have a country or you don’t.”

Here’s what to know about the situation and what might come next:

What did the judge say?

Williams said she expected the population at the facility to drop within 60 days by transferring detainees to other facilities. Once that happens, fencing, lighting, gas, waste, generators and other equipment should be removed from the site. No additional detainees can be sent to the facility, and noadditional lighting, fencing, paving, buildings or tents can be added to the camp. The only repairs that can be made to the existing facility are for safety purposes. However, the judge allowed for the existing dormitories and housing to stay in place as long as they are maintained to prevent deterioration or damage.

Here’s where detainees might end up

During court hearings, lawyers said at one point there were fewer than 1,000 detainees at the facility, which state officials had planned to hold up to 3,000 people. Although the detainees could be sent to other facilities out of state, Florida has other immigration detention centers including the Krome North Processing Center in Miami, the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach and the Baker County Detention Center managed by the local sheriff’s office. Earlier this month, DeSantis announced plans for a second state-initiated immigration detention facility dubbed “Deportation Depot” at a state prison about 43 miles (69 kilometers) west of downtown Jacksonville. State officials say it is expected to hold 1,300 immigration detention beds, though that capacity could be expanded to 2,000 beds.

How does this decision impact the other “Alligator Alcatraz” lawsuit?

Civil rights lawyers had filed a second lawsuit over practices at “Alligator Alcatraz,” claiming that detainees weren’t able to meet with their attorneys privately and were denied access to immigration courts. Another federal judge in Miami dismissed part of the lawsuit earlier this week after the Trump administration designated the Krome North Processing Center as the court for their cases to be heard. The judge moved the remaining counts of the case from Florida’s southern district to the middle district. Eunice Cho, the lead attorney for the detainees, said Friday that the decision in the environmental lawsuit won’t have an impact on the civil rights case since there could be detainees at the facility for the next two months.

“Our case addresses the lack of access to counsel for people detained at Alligator Alcatraz, and there are still people detained there,” Cho said.

Status of the hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts

No one has said publicly what will happen to the hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts involved in the facility. DeSantis’ administration in July signed contracts with private vendors to pay at least $245 million to set up and run the center, according to a public database. That amount — to be fronted by Florida taxpayers — was in line with the $450 million a year officials have estimated the facility was going to cost. The governor’s office and the Florida Division of Emergency Management on Friday didn’t respond to questions about whether Florida taxpayers would still be on the hook for the contracts if the facility is shuttered.

Is this a final decision?

No. This case will continue to be litigated. The state of Florida filed a notice of appeal Thursday night, shortly after the ruling was issued. As its name suggests, a preliminary injunction is only an initial action taken by a judge to prevent harm while a lawsuit makes its way through the court process and when it appears that one side has a good chance of succeeding based on the merits of the case.

Schneider and Anderson write for the Associated Press.

As the Trump administration continues to ramp up immigration enforcement actions, a group of lawmakers is suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement for placing restrictions on detention center visits — obstructing Congress’ role in overseeing government functions.

Twelve House Democrats filed a lawsuit challenging new guidelines that require advance notice for oversight visits and render certain facilities off-limits. “No child should be sleeping on concrete, and no sick person should be denied care,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles). “Yet that’s exactly what we keep hearing is happening inside Trump’s detention centers.”

These lawmakers are right to seek access to detention facilities. Detention centers have long been plagued by poor conditions, so the need for oversight is urgent. With record numbers of migrants being detained, the public has a right to know how people in the government’s custody are being treated.

The U.S. operates the world’s largest immigration detention system, at a cost of $3 billion a year. This money is appropriated by Congress — and comes with conditions.

Under existing law, none of the funds given to Homeland Security may be used to prevent members of Congress from conducting oversight visits of “any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.” In addition, the law states that members of Congress are not required to “provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility.” So ICE’s attempt to place limits on oversight appears to be illegal.

The restrictions are also problematic because they claim to exempt the agency’s field offices from oversight. However, migrants are being locked up in such offices, including at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles, and 26 Federal Plaza in New York City. In the former, one detainee reported being fed only once a day, at 3 a.m. In the latter, as many as 80 detainees have been crammed into a single room amid sweltering summer temperatures. These offices were never set up to house people overnight or for days or weeks. If they are functioning as de facto detention centers, then they must be subject to inspections.

Congressional oversight of immigration detention is vital right now. The current capacity for U.S. detention facilities is 41,000. Yet the government was holding nearly 57,000 people as of July 27. That means facilities are far over capacity, in a system that the Vera Institute of Justice describes as “plagued by abuse and neglect.”

No matter who is president, conditions in immigrant detention are generally abysmal. Migrant detention centers have been cited for their lack of medical care, poor treatment of detainees, and physical and sexual violence. In 2019, the federal government itself reported that conditions in detention were inhumane. At least 11 people have died in detention since January. This reality cries out for more transparency and accountability — especially because Homeland Security laid off most of its internal watchdogs earlier this year.

The ranks of detainees include asylum-seekers, teenagers, DACA recipients, pregnant women, journalists and even U.S. citizens. Most of the detainees arrested lately have no criminal convictions. These folks are often arrested and moved thousands of miles away from home, complicating their access to legal representation and family visits. A visit by a congressional delegation may be the only way to ensure that they are being treated properly.

In response to the lawsuit by House Democrats, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for Homeland Security, said: “These members of Congress could have just scheduled a tour. Instead, they’re running to court to drive clicks and fundraising emails.” She added that ICE was imposing the new limits, in part, because of “obstructions to enforcement, including by politicians themselves.”

McLaughlin might have been referring to a May scuffle outside a Newark, N.J., detention center that led to charges being filed against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) and the arrest of the city’s mayor. But this incident would not have occurred if immigration officials had followed the law and allowed lawmakers inside to survey the facility’s conditions.

Indeed, the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, told a congressional hearing in May that he recognized the right of members to visit detention facilities, even with no notice. And the notion that any government agency can unilaterally regulate Congress runs afoul of the Constitution. The legislative branch has the right and obligation to supervise the executive branch. Simply put, ICE cannot tell members of Congress what they can or cannot do.

The need for oversight in detention facilities will only become greater in the future, as Congress just approved $45 billion for the expansion of immigrant detention centers. This could result in the daily detention of at least 116,000 people. Meanwhile, 55% of Americans, according to the Pew Center, disapprove of building more facilities to hold immigrants.

ICE’s new policies violate federal law. No agency is above oversight — and members of Congress must be allowed full access to detention facilities.

Raul A. Reyes is an immigration attorney and contributor to NBC Latino and CNN Opinion. X: @RaulAReyes; Instagram: @raulareyes1

LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska announced plans for an immigration detention center in the remote southwest corner of the state as President Trump’s administration races to expand the infrastructure necessary for increasing deportations.

The facility will be dubbed the “Cornhusker Clink,” a play on Nebraska’s nickname of the Cornhusker State and an old slang term for jail. The alliterative name follows in the vein of the previously announced “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot” detention centers in Florida and the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana.

Republican Gov. Jim Pillen said Tuesday he and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had agreed to use an existing minimum security prison work camp in McCook — a remote city of about 7,000 people in the middle of the wide-open prairies between Denver and Omaha — to house people awaiting deportation and being held for other immigration proceedings. It’s expected to be a Midwest hub for detainees from several states.

“This is about keeping Nebraskans – and Americans across our country – safe,” Pillen said in a statement.

The facility can accommodate 200 people with plans to expand to 300. McCook is about 210 miles west of Lincoln, the state capital.

“If you are in America illegally, you could find yourself in Nebraska’s Cornhusker Clink. Avoid arrest and self deport now using the CBP Home App,” Noem said in a separate statement.

Noem’s agency posted a picture on social media showing ears of corn wearing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hats, standing in front of a prison fence.

The governor said later at a news conference in McCook that the center will have the advantage of being located at an existing facility and near a regional airport. He told reporters he didn’t know if the center would house women as well as men or if children could be held there. He said he first learned the federal government was interested in the facility on Friday.

Pillen also announced he would order the Nebraska National Guard to provide administrative and logistical support to Nebraska-based immigration agents. About 20 soldiers will be involved. And he said the Nebraska State Patrol would allow six troopers to help federal immigration agents make arrests.

Adding detention facilities to hold growing number of immigrants arrested

The Trump administration is adding new detention facilities across the country to hold the growing number of immigrants it has arrested and accused of being in the country illegally. ICE centers were holding more than 56,000 immigrants in June, the most since 2019.

The new and planned facilities include the remote detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” which opened last month. It’s designed to hold up to 3,000 detainees in temporary tent structures. When Trump toured it, he suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide.

The Florida facility also been the subject of legal challenges by attorneys who allege violations of due process there, including the rights of detainees to meet with their attorneys, limited access to immigration courts and poor living conditions. Critics have been trying to stop further construction and operations until it comes into compliance with federal environmental laws.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week that his administration is preparing to open a second facility, dubbed “Deportation Depot,” at a state prison in north Florida. It’s expected to have 1,300 immigration beds, though that capacity could be expanded to 2,000, state officials said.

Also last week, officials in the rural Tennessee town of Mason voted to approve agreements to turn a former prison into an immigration detention facility operated by a private company, despite loud objections from residents and activists during a contentious public meeting.

And the Trump administration announced plans earlier this month for a 1,000-bed detention center in Indiana that would be dubbed “Speedway Slammer,” prompting a backlash in the Midwestern state that hosts the Indianapolis 500 auto race.

Corrections director Rob Jeffreys said the 186 inmates currently at the McCook work camp will be transferred to other state facilities over the next 45 to 60 days. The repurposed facility will be run by the state but will be paid for by the federal government. He said it’s already set up and accredited to hold prisoners, so detainees won’t be housed in tents or other temporary quarters.

The Nebraska plan has already raised concerns

In a video posted to social media, state Sen. Megan Hunt, an independent, blasted a lack of transparency about plans for a detention center, citing her unfulfilled request to the governor and executive branch for emails and other records.

She urged people to support local immigrant rights groups.

“The No. 1 thing we need to do is protect our neighbors, protect the people in our communities who are being targeted by these horrible people, these horrible organizations that are making choices to lock up, detain, disappear our neighbors and families and friends,” Hunt said.

Around a half-dozen protesters sat in the hallway outside the governor’s office Tuesday afternoon making signs that said, “No Nazi Nebraska” and “ICE = Gestapo.”

Maghie Miller-Jenkins of Lincoln said she doesn’t think an ICE detention center is a good idea, adding the state should tackle problems like child hunger and homelessness. “This state has numerous things they could focus on that would benefit the constituents,” she said.

Funk writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Steve Karnowski in St. Paul, Minn., Jack Dura in Fargo, N.D., and Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this story.

MIAMI — A federal judge in Miami dismissed part of a lawsuit that claimed detainees were denied access to the legal system at the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” and moved the remaining counts of the case to another court.

Claims that the detainees were denied hearings in immigration court were rendered moot when the Trump administration last weekend designated the Krome North Processing Center near Miami as a site for their cases to be heard, U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz said in a 47-page ruling Monday night dismissing a 5th Amendment count.

The judge granted the state defendants a change of venue motion to the Middle District of Florida, where the remaining claims of 1st Amendment violations will be addressed. Those include allegations of delays in scheduling meetings between detainees and their attorneys and an inability for the detainees to talk privately with their attorneys by phone or videoconference at the facility whose official name is the South Detention Facility.

ACLU lawyer Eunice Cho, the lead attorney for the detainees, said the federal government reversed course only last weekend and allowed the detainees to petition an immigration court because of the lawsuit.

“It should not take a lawsuit to force the government to abide by the law and the Constitution,” Cho said. “We look forward to continuing the fight.”

The judge heard arguments from both sides in a hearing earlier Monday in Miami. Civil rights attorneys were seeking a preliminary injunction to ensure detainees at the facility had access to their lawyers and could get a hearing.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration raced to build the facility on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland two months ago in order to aid President Trump’s efforts to deport people who are in the U.S. illegally. The governor has said the location in the rugged and remote Everglades was meant as a deterrent against escape, much like the island prison in California that Republicans named it after. The detention center has an estimated annual cost of $450 million.

The state and federal government had argued that even though the isolated airstrip where the facility is located is owned by Miami-Dade County, Florida’s Southern District was the wrong venue since the detention center is located in neighboring Collier County, which is in the state’s Middle District.

Judge Ruiz had hinted during a hearing last week that he had some concerns over which jurisdiction was appropriate. Attorneys for the detainees had argued that Ruiz’s court was appropriate since the detainees were under the oversight of federal officials in the Miami regional office. Any transfer to another venue would cause a delay in a court decision.

Ruiz noted the facts in the case changed Saturday when the Trump administration designated the Krome facility as the immigration court with jurisdiction over all detainees at the detention center.

The judge wrote that the case has “a tortured procedural history” since it was filed July 16, weeks after the first group of detainees arrived at the facility.

“Nearly every aspect of the Plaintiffs’ civil action — their causes of action, their facts in support, their theories of venue, their arguments on the merits and their requests for relief — have changed with each filing,” the judge wrote.

The state and federal government defendants made an identical argument last week about jurisdiction for a second lawsuit in which environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe sued to stop further construction and operations at the Everglades detention center until it’s in compliance with federal environmental laws.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami on Aug. 7 ordered a 14-day halt to additional construction at the site while witnesses testified at a hearing that wrapped up last week. She has said she plans to issue a ruling before the order expires later this week. She had yet to rule on the venue question.

Detainees at the facility have said worms turn up in the food, toilets don’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere.

Civil rights attorneys also said officers were going cell to cell to pressure detainees into signing voluntary removal orders before they’re allowed to consult their attorneys, and some detainees had been deported even though they didn’t have final removal orders. Along with the spread of a respiratory infection and rainwater flooding in tents, the circumstances had fueled a feeling of desperation among detainees, the attorneys wrote in a court filing.

Fischer, Schneider and Frisaro write for the Associated Press. Frisaro reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Schneider reported from Orlando, Fla.

Lawyers seeking a temporary restraining order against an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades say that “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been barred from meeting attorneys, are being held without any charges and that a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings.

A virtual hearing in federal court in Miami was being held Monday on a lawsuit that was filed July 16. A new motion on the case was filed Friday.

Lawyers who have shown up for bond hearings for “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been told that the immigration court doesn’t have jurisdiction over their clients, the attorneys wrote in court papers. The immigration attorneys demanded that federal and state officials identify an immigration court that has jurisdiction over the detainees and start accepting petitions for bond, claiming the detainees constitutional rights to due process are being violated.

“This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are held incommunicado, with no ability to access the courts, under legal authority that has never been explained and may not exist,” the immigration attorneys wrote. “This is an unprecedented and disturbing situation.”

The lawsuit is the second one challenging “Alligator Alcatraz.” Environmental groups last month sued federal and state officials asking that the project built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades be halted because the process didn’t follow state and federal environmental laws.

Critics have condemned the facility as a cruel and inhumane threat to the ecologically sensitive wetlands, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican state officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has praised Florida for coming forward with the idea, as the department looks to significantly expand its immigration detention capacity.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

OCHOPEE, Fla. — Deportation flights from the remote Everglades immigration lockup known as ”Alligator Alcatraz″ have begun and are expected to increase soon, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday.

The first flights operated by the Department of Homeland Security have transferred about 100 detainees from the immigration detention center to other countries, DeSantis said during a news conference near the facility.

“You’re going to see the numbers go up dramatically,” he said.

Two or three flights have already departed, but officials didn’t say where those flights headed.

Critics have condemned the South Florida facility as cruel and inhumane. DeSantis and other Republican officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Building the facility in the Everglades and naming it after a notorious federal prison were meant as deterrents, DeSantis and other officials have said.

The White House has delighted in the area’s remoteness — about 50 miles west of Miami — and the fact that it is teeming with pythons and alligators. It hopes to send a message that repercussions will be severe if U.S. immigration laws are broken.

Trump has suggested that his administration could reopen Alcatraz, the notorious island prison in San Francisco Bay. The White House also has sent some immigrants awaiting deportation to a detention lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and others to a megaprison in El Salvador.

The Everglades facility was built in a matter of days over 10 square miles. It features more than 200 security cameras and more than 5 miles of barbed wire. An adjacent runway makes it more convenient for homeland security officials to move detainees in and out of the site.

It currently holds about 2,000 people, with the potential to double the capacity, Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said Friday.

DeSantis wants the U.S. Justice Department to allow an immigration judge on site to speed up the deportation process.

“This was never intended to be something where people are just held,” he said. “The whole purpose is to be a place that can facilitate increased frequency and numbers of deportations.”

Critics have challenged federal and state officials’ contention that the detention center is just run by the state of Florida. Environmental groups suing to stop further construction and expansion demanded Thursday to see agreements or communications between state and federal officials and to visit the site.

Seewer writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mike Schneider contributed to this report.

MIAMI — Worms in the food. Toilets that don’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste. Days without a shower or prescription medicine. Mosquitoes and insects everywhere. Lights on all night. Air conditioners that suddenly shut off in the tropical heat. Detainees forced to use recorded phone lines to speak with their lawyers and loved ones.

Only days after President Trump toured a new immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades that officials have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” these are some of the conditions described by people held inside.

Attorneys, advocates, detainees and families are speaking out about the makeshift migrant detention center that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration raced to build on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland. The center began accepting detainees on July 2.

“These are human beings who have inherent rights, and they have a right to dignity,” said immigration attorney Josephine Arroyo. “And they’re violating a lot of their rights by putting them there.”

Government officials have adamantly disputed the conditions described by detainees, their attorneys and family members, but have provided few details, and have denied access to the media. A televised tour for Trump and DeSantis showed rows of chain-link cages, each containing dozens of bunk beds, under large white tents.

“The reporting on the conditions in the facility is completely false. The facility meets all required standards and is in good working order,” said Stephanie Hartman, a spokesperson for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which built the center.

A group of Democratic lawmakers sued the DeSantis administration for access. The administration is allowing a site visit by state legislators and members of Congress on Saturday.

Descriptions from attorneys and families differ from the government’s ‘model’

Families and attorneys who spoke with the Associated Press relayed detainees’ accounts of a place they say is unsanitary and lacks adequate medical care, pushing some into a state of extreme distress.

Such conditions make other immigration detention centers where advocates and staff have warned of unsanitary confinements, medical neglect and a lack of food and water seem “advanced,” said immigration attorney Atara Eig.

Trump and his allies have praised this detention center’s harshness and remoteness as befitting the “worst of the worst” and as a national model for the deterrence needed to persuade immigrants to “self-deport” from the United States.

But among those locked inside the chain-link enclosures are people with no criminal records, and at least one teenage boy, attorneys told the AP.

Concerns about medical care, lack of medicines

Immigration attorney Katie Blankenship described a concerning lack of medical care at the facility, relaying an account from a 35-year-old Cuban client who told his wife that detainees go days without a shower. The toilets are in the same space as the bunk beds and can’t handle their needs, she said.

The wife, a 28-year-old green card holder and the mother of the couple’s 2-year-old daughter, who is a U.S. citizen, relayed his complaints to the AP. Fearing government retaliation against her and her detained husband, she asked not to be identified.

“They have no way to bathe, no way to wash their mouths, the toilet overflows and the floor is flooded with pee and poop,” the woman told the AP. “They eat once a day and have two minutes to eat. The meals have worms,” she added.

The woman said the detainees “all went on a hunger strike” on Thursday night to protest the conditions.

“There are days when I don’t know anything about him until the evening,” she said, describing waiting for his calls, interrupted every three minutes by an announcement that the conversation is being recorded.

No meetings with attorneys

The detainees’ attorneys say their due process rights are among numerous constitutional protections being denied.

Blankenship is among the lawyers who have been refused access. After traveling to the remote facility and waiting for hours to speak with her clients, including a 15-year-old Mexican boy with no criminal charges, she was turned away by a security guard who told her to wait for a phone call in 48 hours that would notify her when she could return.

“I said, well, what’s the phone number that I can follow up with that? There is none,” Blankenship recalled. “You have due process obligations, and this is a violation of it.”

Arroyo’s client, a 36-year-old Mexican man who came to the U.S. as a child, has been detained at the center since Saturday after being picked up for driving with a suspended license in Florida’s Orange County. He’s a beneficiary of the DACA program, created to protect young adults who were brought to the U.S. as children from deportation and to provide them with work authorization.

Blankenship’s Cuban client paid a bond and was told he’d be freed on a criminal charge in Miami, only to be detained and transferred to the Everglades.

Eig has been seeking the release of a client in his 50s with no criminal record and a stay of removal, meaning the government can’t legally deport him while he appeals. But she hasn’t been able to get a bond hearing. She’s heard that an immigration court inside the Krome Detention Center in Miami “may be hearing cases” from the Everglades facility, but as of Friday, they were still waiting.

“Jurisdiction remains an issue,” Eig said, adding “the issue of who’s in charge over there is very concerning.”

Salomon and Payne write for the Associated Press. Payne reported from Tallahassee, Fla.

OCHOPEE, Fla. — President Trump will turn a new immigration detention center in a remote area of the Florida Everglades into a symbol of his border crackdown when he visits on Tuesday.

The facility, assembled on a remote airstrip with tents and trailers that are normally used after a natural disaster, has been given the nickname “Alligator Alcatraz,” a moniker that has alarmed immigrant activists but appeals to the Republican president’s aggressive approach to deportations.

“This is not a nice business,” Trump said while leaving the White House in the morning. Then he joked that “we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison.”

“Don’t run in a straight line. Run like this,” he said, as he moved his hand in a zigzag motion. “And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%.”

That doesn’t seem to be sound advice, though. It’s best to dash in one direction in the rare situation when an alligator gives chase, according to a website run by the University of Florida.

Ahead of Trump’s arrival, local authorities were positioned by the entrance of the airstrip. Media vans and other vehicles were parked along the highway lined by cypress trees.

Protestors have often gathered near the facility, which is about 50 miles west of Miami and could house 5,000 detainees. They’ve criticized the potential impact on a delicate ecosystem and say Trump is trying to send a cruel message to immigrants — while some Native American leaders have also opposed construction, saying the land is sacred.

“I have a lot of immigrants I have been working with. They are fine people. They do not deserve to be incarcerated here,” said Phyllis Andrews, a retired teacher who drove from Naples, Florida, to protest Trump’s visit on Tuesday. “It’s terrible that there’s a bounty on their head.”

The president’s supporters showed up as well. One wore a hat saying, “Trump was right about everything.”

A key selling point for the Trump administration is the site’s remoteness — and the fact that it is in swampland filled with mosquitoes, pythons and alligators. The White House hopes that conveys a message to detainees and the rest of the world that repercussions will be severe if the immigration laws of the United States are not followed.

“There’s only one road leading in, and the only way out is a one-way flight,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. “It is isolated, and it is surrounded by dangerous wildlife and unforgiving terrain.”

Crackdowns on the U.S.-Mexico border and harsh immigration policies have long been a centerpiece of Trump’s political brand.

During his first term in 2019, Trump denied reports that he floated the idea of building a moat filled with alligators at the southern border. “I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough,” he said at the time.

In his second term, Trump has suggested that his administration could move to reopen Alcatraz, the notorious and hard-to-reach island prison off San Francisco. The White House has similarly promoted the political shock value of sending some immigrants awaiting deportation from the U.S. to a detention lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and others to a megaprison in El Salvador.

Some of the ideas have been impractical. For example, transforming Alcatraz from a tourist attraction into a prison would be very costly, and Guantánamo Bay is being used less often than administration officials originally envisioned.

However, the new detention center in the Everglades came together very quickly. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently told the Associated Press that she felt some contractors were charging the government too much to run facilities, “so I went directly to states and to ask them if they could do a better job providing this service.”

Florida officials “were willing to build it and do it much quicker than what some of the other vendors were,” she said. “And it was a real solution that we’ll be able to utilize if we need to.”

Former U.S. Rep. David Jolly of Florida, a former Republican who is now running for governor as a Democrat, called the facility a “callous political stunt.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees are generally held for reasons like entering the country illegally or overstaying a visa. They are either waiting for ICE to put them on the next flight or bus ride home, or they’re fighting their removal in immigration court.

If an immigrant is accused of or has committed a violent crime, he or she is tried and held in state or federal criminal jurisdiction, separate from the immigration system. In those cases, they may be transferred to ICE for deportation after completing their criminal sentences.

State officials are spearheading construction of the Florida facility, but much of the cost is being covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is best known for responding to hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, whom Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has credited as the architect of the Everglades plan, first debuted the proposal with a slickly produced video, complete with custom graphics featuring red-eyed alligators and a hard rock soundtrack.

The Department of Homeland Security posted an image of alligators wearing ICE hats and sitting in front of a fenced-in compound ringed with barbed wire.

The Florida Republican Party has fundraised off the facility, selling branded T-shirts and beverage container sleeves. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested Monday that the facility would be open and “ready for business” by the time Trump arrives.

The governor, who challenged Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has also played up the fact that the site will be hard to escape from.

“They ain’t going anywhere once they’re there, unless you want them to go somewhere, because good luck getting to civilization,” DeSantis said. “So the security is amazing.”

Licon and Weissert write for the Associated Press. Weissert reported from Washington. AP writers Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Fla., Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.