detainees

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?”

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.

A sign at the entrance to Alligator Alcatraz located at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport is seen on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, in Ochopee Florida. Officials have said that all detainees will be removed from the site in the coming days. File Photo By Gary I Rothstein/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 28 (UPI) — The Trump administration is winding down operations at its Florida Everglades detention facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” per a court order, with all detainees to be removed within days, according to reports.

Florida Division of Emergency Management head Kevin Guthrie wrote in a Friday email obtained by both The New York Times and ABC News, but reported on Wednesday, that the South Florida Detention Facility in the Big Cypress National Preserve in Ochopee will probably “be down to 0 individuals within a few days.”

The news organizations reported that the email was sent in response to interfaith leaders who had asked to minister to the facility’s detainees.

It’s unclear exactly how many detainees are held — and were held — at the detention facility rapidly constructed at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport compound.

President Donald Trump has been channeling funds to expanded immigration detention capabilities nationwide as part of his pledge to mass deport immigrants, with several Republican-led states entering partnerships with the federal government to construct them.

Alligator Alcatraz opened July 1 and was met with Democratic opposition and lawsuits.

On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration and the state of Florida to essentially wind down operations at the facility within 60 days. No new detainees were allowed to be transferred to the site and much of it was ordered to be dismantled.

In her ruling, Judge Kathleen Williams sided with environmental groups who accused the state and federal governments of violating environmental protection laws, as no environmental review was performed before they started erecting the facility.

“There weren’t ‘deficiencies’ in the agency’s process. There was no process. The defendants consulted no stakeholders or experts and did no evaluation of the environmental risks and alternatives from which the court may glean the likelihood that the agency would choose the same course if it had done a NEPA-compliant evaluation,” she wrote in her order, referring to the National Environmental Policy Act.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has appealed the ruling.

Earlier this month, DeSantis, a Republican and a Trump ally, announced plans to open another detention facility, this one called “Deportation Depot.” It is to be housed in a shuttered state prison in North Florida.

MIAMI — A federal judge on Monday considered whether detainees at a temporary immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades have been denied their legal rights.

In the second of two lawsuits challenging practices at the facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” civil rights attorneys sought a preliminary injunction to ensure that detainees at the site have confidential access to their lawyers, which they say hasn’t happened. Florida officials dispute that claim.

The civil rights attorneys also wanted U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz to identify an immigration court that has jurisdiction over the detention center so that petitions can be filed for the detainees’ bond or release. The attorneys say that hearings for their cases have been routinely canceled in federal Florida immigration courts by judges who say they don’t have jurisdiction over the detainees in the Everglades.

At the start of Monday’s hearing, government attorneys said they would designate the immigration court at the Krome North Service Processing Center in the Miami area as having jurisdiction over the detention center in the Everglades in an effort to address some of the civil rights attorneys’ constitutional concerns. The judge told the government attorneys that he didn’t expect them to change that designation without good reason.

But before delving into the core issues of the detainees’ rights, Ruiz wanted to hear about whether the lawsuit was filed in the proper jurisdiction in Miami. The state and federal government defendants have argued that even though the isolated airstrip where the facility was built is owned by Miami-Dade County, Florida’s Southern District is the wrong venue since the detention center is located in neighboring Collier County, which is in the state’s Middle District.

The hearing ended without the judge making an immediate ruling. Ruiz suggested that the case against the federal defendants might be appropriate for the Southern District, but the case against the state defendants might be better in the Middle District.

Court for the Southern District is held in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Pierce, Key West, and West Palm Beach, while Middle District courthouses are located in Tampa, Fernandina, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Live Oak, Ocala, Orlando and St. Petersburg.

All parties have agreed that if the complaints against the state are moved to another venue, then the complaints against the federal government should be moved as well. It wasn’t immediately clear how Ruiz, a Trump appointee, handing the case off to another judge would affect the ultimate outcome of the case.

The hearing over legal access comes as another federal judge in Miami considers whether construction and operations at the facility should be halted indefinitely because federal environmental rules weren’t followed. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams 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.

Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week that his administration was preparing to open a second immigration detention facility dubbed “Deportation Depot” at a state prison in north Florida. DeSantis justified building the second detention center by saying President Trump’s administration needs the additional capacity to hold and deport more immigrants.

The state of Florida has disputed claims that “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been unable to meet with their attorneys. The state’s lawyers said that since July 15, when videoconferencing started at the facility, the state has granted every request for a detainee to meet with an attorney, and in-person meetings started July 28. The first detainees arrived at the beginning of July.

But the civil rights attorneys said that even if lawyers have been scheduled to meet with their clients at the detention center, it hasn’t been in private or confidential, and it is more restrictive than at other immigration detention facilities. They said scheduling delays and an unreasonable advance-notice requirement have hindered their ability to meet with the detainees, thereby violating their constitutional rights.

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

The judge promised a quick decision.

Fischer and Schneider write for the Associated Press.

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.

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.

The first group of immigrants has arrived at a new detention center deep in the Florida Everglades that officials have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” a spokesperson for Republican state Atty. Gen. James Uthmeier told the Associated Press.

“People are there,” Press Secretary Jae Williams said, though he didn’t immediately provide further details on the number of detainees or when they arrived.

“Next stop: back to where they came from,” Uthmeier said on the X social media platform Wednesday. He’s been credited as the architect behind the Everglades proposal. Requests for additional information from the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which is building the site, had not been returned early Thursday afternoon.

The facility, at an airport used for training, will have an initial capacity of about 3,000 detainees, DeSantis said. The center was built in eight days and features more than 200 security cameras, 28,000-plus feet of barbed wire and 400 security personnel.

Immigrants who are arrested by Florida law enforcement officers under the federal government’s 287(g) program will be taken to the facility, according to a Trump administration official. The program is led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and allows police officers to interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation.

The facility is expected to be expanded in 500-bed increments until it has an estimated 5,000 beds by early July.

Environmental groups and Native American tribes have protested against the center, contending it is a threat to the fragile Everglades system, would be cruel to detainees because of heat and mosquitoes, and is on land the tribes consider sacred.

It’s also located at a place prone to frequent heavy rains, which caused some flooding in the tents Tuesday during a visit by President Trump to mark its opening. State officials say the complex can withstand a Category 2 hurricane, which packs winds of between 96 and 110 mph, and that contractors worked overnight to shore up areas where flooding occurred.

DeSantis and other state officials say locating the facility in the rugged and remote Florida Everglades is meant as a deterrent — and naming it after the notorious federal prison of Alcatraz, an island fortress known for its brutal conditions, is meant to send a message. It’s another sign of how the Trump administration and its allies are relying on scare tactics to try to persuade people in the country illegally to leave voluntarily.

State and federal officials have touted the plans on social media and conservative airwaves, sharing a meme of a compound ringed with barbed wire and “guarded” by alligators wearing hats labeled “ICE” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Republican Party of Florida has taken to fundraising off the detention center, selling branded T-shirts and beer koozies emblazoned with the facility’s name.

Anderson and Payne write for the Associated Press. Anderson reported from St. Petersburg, Fla. Payne reported from Tallahassee, Fla. AP reporter Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report.

One of the two detainees still missing after escaping from a New Jersey federal immigration detention center has been arrested, the FBI said Tuesday.

Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes, from Honduras, has been taken into custody, FBI spokesperson Amy Thoreson said in an email. Andres Felipe Pineda-Mogollon, from Colombia, is still missing from Thursday night’s escape, the bureau said.

Bautista-Reyes and Pineda-Mogollon and two other men busted out of the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark during reports of disorder there by breaking through a wall and escaping from a parking lot, according to U.S. Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, and Homeland Security officials.

All four men were in the country illegally and had been charged by local police in New Jersey and New York City, federal officials said.

Bautista-Reyes was charged in May with aggravated assault, attempt to cause bodily injury, terroristic threats and a weapon crime. Pineda-Mogollon, from Colombia, was charged with minor larceny and burglary crimes.

The details surrounding Bautista-Reyes’ capture were not immediately clear. Messages seeking information were sent to the FBI and the Homeland Security Department, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The FBI on Monday had increased the reward for information leading to their arrest to $25,000 from $10,000.

Joel Enrique Sandoval-Lopez, one of the other fugitives, was taken into custody in Passaic, N.J., on Friday, the day after the escape in nearby Newark. Then, on Sunday, Joan Sebastian Castaneda-Lozada surrendered to federal authorities in Milleville, N.J. Sandoval-Lopez, from Honduras, was charged with unlawful possession of a handgun in October and aggravated assault in February, officials said. Castaneda-Lozada, from Colombia, was charged with burglary, theft and conspiracy, authorities said.

A message seeking comment on behalf of the men was left Tuesday with the New Jersey public defender’s office. It’s unclear who may be representing the men.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democrat who’s been critical of President Trump’s immigration crackdown, cited reports of a possible uprising and escape after disorder broke out at the facility Thursday night and protesters outside the center locked arms and pushed against barricades as vehicles passed through gates. Much is still unclear about what unfolded there.

But GEO Group, the company that owns and operates the detention facility for the federal government, said in a statement that there was “no widespread unrest” at the facility.

Delaney Hall has been the site of clashes this year between Democratic officials who say the facility needs more oversight and the Trump administration and those who run the facility.

Baraka was arrested May 9, handcuffed and charged with trespassing. The charge was later dropped and U.S. Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver was later charged with assaulting federal officers, stemming from a skirmish that happened outside the facility. She has denied the charges.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press.