facility

A HUNT for a gang of brazen thieves has been launched after 17 cars were stolen from holidaymakers on a cruise.

The motors were lifted from a special “secure” parking facility in Southampton, overnight.

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The special parking site is operated by Southampton Cruise Parking Services and is touted as “secure” storage for vehicles.

Police said they were working closely with the firm in a bid to capture the thieves.

The holidaymakers vehicles were taken between 9 and 10 September, cops said.

Police were called early the next morning and when they arrived at the parking facility they discovered the motors had been swiped.

So far, only six of the 17 stolen motors have been recovered by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary.

Officers are appealing for any witnesses to come forward to assist with their investigation into the mass motor theft.

Did you have your car stolen? Email [email protected]

A spokesman for Hampshire Constabulary said: “We are appealing for witnesses following the theft of 17 vehicles from a cruise parking facility in Southampton.

“The incident occurred between the evening of September 9 and the early hours of September 10.

“Officers were called at approximately 7:40am on Wednesday September 10 to reports of a suspected break-in at Southampton Cruise Parking Services on First Avenue.

“Upon arrival, it was discovered that 17 cars had been stolen.

“The investigation team is working closely with the company operating the site, as well as local partners, to secure all available evidence.”

Detective Constable Edward Smith, the officer leading the investigation, said: “We don’t underestimate the significant impact this incident has had on the victims, who have returned from their holidays to discover their car stolen.

“We continue to keep those victims updated with the progress with our investigation, which our team is working incredibly hard on to ensure those responsible are arrested.

“We continue to progress several lines of inquiry including a full review of CCTV from the scene and surrounding areas.

“I am pleased to say that this work has already led to the recovery of six of the vehicles and those owners have been updated with the good news.”

Anyone with information, or who may have CCTV footage from the area, is urged to contact police quoting reference number 44250409694.

Alternatively, information can be provided anonymously via Crimestoppers by calling 0800 555 111 or visiting their website.

The Sun has contacted Southampton Cruise Parking Services for comment.

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The Sparks announced they are joining the WNBA’s facilities upgrade boom, building a $150-million, 55,000-square-foot training and practice facility in El Segundo that is set to open ahead of the 2027 season.

The venue will include two WNBA regulation basketball courts along with a locker room, weight room and athletic training space. The team states the facility will also feature an outdoor spa, indoor hydrotherapy suites, dedicated nap rooms, wellness spaces for yoga or mediation, and extensive use of natural light and retractable doors.

“We’re building a place where Sparks players can be at their best on and off the court,” said Eric Holoman, Sparks managing partner and governor. “From cutting-edge training and recovery spaces to family and community areas, every corner of this facility was designed with them at the center.”

The team did not disclose the venue’s address in El Segundo, which also is the location of Lakers, Kings and Chargers practice facilities.

The Sparks, who posted a 21-23 record and fell two wins short of clinching a playoff spot this season, are addressing one of the biggest complaints about the franchise’s commitment to player development. The team most recently trained at El Camino College, where they had no permanent locker room or weight room. The franchise has rented various training locations throughout its history, making the new building a dramatic upgrade for the team.

The team provided the following renderings of the facility.

A rendering shows the exterior of the Sparks’ future training and practice facility in El Segundo.

(Gensler)

A rendering shows the basketball courts in the Sparks’ future training and practice facility in El Segundo.

(Gensler)

A rendering shows an indoor hydrotherapy pool in the Sparks’ future training and practice facility in El Segundo.

(Gensler)

A rendering shows what the Sparks call a glamour area in their future training and practice facility in El Segundo.

(Gensler)

A rendering shows a locker room in the Sparks’ future training and practice facility in El Segundo.

(Gensler)

A rendering shows a weight and fitness room in the Sparks’ future training and practice facility in El Segundo.

(Gensler)

US officials say the suspected shooter is dead from a ‘self-inflicted gunshot wound’

Three people have been wounded in a shooting at a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Dallas, Texas.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed the incident on Wednesday in a statement on X, saying there were “multiple injuries and fatalities” and that the suspected shooter was dead from a “self-inflicted gunshot wound”.

“There was a shooting this morning at the Dallas ICE Field Office. Details are still emerging but we can confirm there were multiple injuries and fatalities,” Noem said.

“While we don’t know motive yet, we know that our ICE law enforcement is facing unprecedented violence against them. It must stop. Please pray for the victims and their families.”

Local ABC affiliate WFAA reported that the shooter was found dead on the roof of a nearby building.

Police responded to the federal facility in northwest Dallas at about 7:30am (12:30 GMT).

“Preliminary information is a possible sniper,” ICE acting Director Todd Lyons told CNN.

Local media reports said the victims were in critical condition. ICE has not yet released an official statement.

US Vice President JD Vance says in a post on X that the “obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop”.

“I’m praying for everyone hurt in this attack and for their families,” he added.

ICE, a federal agency under the Department of Homeland Security, is tasked with enforcing immigration laws, and conducting criminal investigations.

Its operations have been the subject of controversy and protests in recent years, particularly since the re-election of President Donald Trump and the subsequent crackdown on immigrants and refugees which is a cornerstone of his administration’s policies. .

Human Rights Watch have previously said ICE detention officers and private contractor guards treat detainees in a “degrading and dehumanizing manner”.

Al Jazeera has contacted ICE for comment.

L.A. political leaders on Friday took what their own policy experts called a risky bet, agreeing to pour billions of dollars into the city’s aging Convention Center in the hope that it will breathe new life into a struggling downtown and the region’s economy.

In an 11-2 vote, the City Council approved a $2.6-billion expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center, despite warnings from their own advisors that the project will draw taxpayer funds away from essential city services for decades.

The risks don’t stop there. If the Convention Center expansion experiences major construction delays, the project’s first phase may not be finished in time for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, when the facility is set to host judo, gymnastics and other competitions.

That, in turn, could leave the city vulnerable to financial penalties from the committee organizing the event, according to the city’s policy analysts.

Those warnings did not discourage Mayor Karen Bass and a majority of the council, who said Friday that the project will create thousands of jobs and boost tourism and business activity, making the city more competitive on the national stage.

“If we’re not here to believe in ourselves, who’s going to believe in us?” said Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, who represents part of the San Fernando Valley. “If we don’t invest in ourselves today, how are we going to be able to go and ask the major investors around the world to come in and invest in us?”

Councilmember Traci Park, who heads the council’s committee on tourism and trade, voiced “very serious concerns” about the city’s economic climate. Nevertheless, she too said the project is needed — in part because of the looming 2028 Games.

“This project will be transformative for downtown, and I truly believe the catalyst for future investment and redevelopment,” she said. “We need to bring our city back to life, and with world events looming, we don’t have time to wait.”

Foes of the project say it is too expensive for a city that, faced with a daunting budget crisis, eliminated 1,600 municipal jobs earlier this year, and has also slowed hiring at the Los Angeles Police Department.

On the eve of Friday’s vote, City Controller Kenneth Mejia came out against the project, saying on Instagram that it won’t generate positive income for the city budget until the late 2050s.

“Due to the city’s consistent budgetary and financial problems with no real solutions for long-term fiscal health … our office cannot recommend going forward with the current plan at this time,” he said.

The price tag for the Convention Center expansion has been a moving target over the last four weeks, increasing dramatically and then moving somewhat downward as the city’s budget analysts sought to assess the financial impact.

On Friday, City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo said the cost had been revised downward by nearly $100 million, which he largely attributed to lower borrowing costs, additional digital billboard revenue and a less expensive construction estimate from the Department of Water and Power.

The project is now expected to cost taxpayers an average of $89 million annually over 30 years, even with the additional parking fees, billboard income and increased tax revenue expected as part of the expansion, he said.

The financial hit will be the largest in the early years. From 2030 to 2046, the project is expected to pull at least $100 million annually away from the city’s general fund, which pays for police officers, firefighters, paramedics and other basic services, according to the newest figures.

Szabo, while addressing the council, called the decision on the expansion “the ultimate judgment call that only you can make.”

“Will it provide substantial economic benefits? Yes. Can we afford it? Yes, but not without future trade-offs,” he said. “We will be committing funds not just in 2030, but for 30 years after that to support this expansion.”

Earlier this week, opponents of the Convention Center expansion attempted to seek a much less expensive alternative focusing, in the short term, on repairs to the facility. The council declined to pursue that option, which was spearheaded by Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, the head of the council’s budget committee.

Yaroslavsky called the project unaffordable and unrealistic, saying it would lead to a reduction in city services.

“If you think city services are bad now — and I think all of us would agree that they suck — and you thought maybe one day we would have funding to restore service, I have bad news: It’s going to get worse,” she told her colleagues. “We aren’t going to be able to afford even the level of service we have right now.”

Yaroslavsky and Councilmember Nithya Raman cast the only opposing votes, saying the city is already under huge financial pressure, both at the local and the national levels. L.A. is already at risk of losing state and federal funding that support housing for the city’s neediest, Raman said.

“What I fear is that we’re going to have a beautiful new Convention Center surrounded by far more homelessness than we have today, which will drive away tourists, which will prevent people from coming here and holding their events here,” Raman said.

Friday’s vote was the culmination of a start-and-stop process that has played out at City Hall for more than a decade. Council members have repeatedly looked at upgrading the Convention Center, planning at one point for a new high-rise hotel attached to the facility.

Officials said the expansion project would add an estimated 325,000 square feet to the Convention Center, connecting the facility’s South Hall — whose curving green exterior faces the 10 and 110 Freeway interchange — with the West Hall, which is now an extremely faded blue.

To accomplish that goal, a new wing will be built directly over Pico Boulevard, a task that makes the project “extraordinarily complicated and extraordinarily costly,” Szabo said.

Southern California’s construction trade unions made clear that the Convention Center was their top priority, pressing council members at public meetings and behind the scenes to support it. The project is expected to create about 13,000 construction jobs, plus 2,150 permanent jobs.

Sydney Berrard, a retired member of Sheet Metal Workers’ Local Union No. 105, directed his testimony to Park — who had been undecided on the project for several weeks — telling her she needed to stand with her district’s construction workers.

“The only reason I was able to raise my family, buy a home and retire with security in your district is because of major projects like this,” he said.

Business and local community groups also backed the project, saying it will help a downtown that has struggled to recover since the height of the pandemic. By increasing the amount of contiguous meeting space, L.A. will be able to attract national events, accommodating tens of thousands of visitors at a single convention, they said.

“This is a model that can work,” said Nella McOsker, president and chief executive of the Central City Assn., a downtown-based business group.

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who missed Friday’s meeting because of an out-of-state trip planned several months ago, said he remains worried that the project won’t be finished in time for the 2028 Games.

“If that happens, not only is that a shame and embarrassing for the city of L.A. … but the financial risk of that is tremendous,” he said.

Earlier this week, Blumenfield joined Yaroslavsky and Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez in recommending the less expensive alternative plan. On Friday, Hernandez shifted her position to support the expansion.

Hernandez said she too is frustrated with the quality of city services, and will work on finding additional funding to pay for them.

“I know that we will find new money. And it will be OPM — other people’s money,” she said. “Because we can’t keep funding this on the backs of our constituents.”

Because of the tight timeline, construction is expected to begin almost right away, with crews starting demolition work next month.

Ernesto Medrano, executive secretary of the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council, said the project will be an investment in L.A.’s workers.

“Our members are ready to don their hard hats, their work boots, their tool belts and start moving dirt,” said Medrano, who began his career loading and unloading trucks at the Convention Center.

OMAHA — No formal agreement has been signed to convert a remote state prison in Nebraska into the latest immigration detention center for President Trump’s sweeping crackdown, more than three weeks since the governor announced the plan and as lawmakers and nearby residents grow increasingly skeptical.

Corrections officials insist the facility could start housing hundreds of male detainees next month, with classrooms and other spaces at the McCook Work Ethic Camp retrofitted for beds. However, lawmakers briefed last week by state officials said they got few concrete answers about cost, staffing and oversight.

“There was more unanswered questions than answered questions in terms of what they know,” state Sen. Wendy DeBoer said.

Officials in the city of McCook were caught off guard in mid-August when Republican Gov. Jim Pillen announced that the minimum-security prison in rural southwest Nebraska would serve as a Midwest hub for immigration detainees. Pillen and federal officials dubbed it the “Cornhusker Clink,” in line with other alliterative detention center names such as “ Alligator Alcatraz ” in Florida and the “Speedway Slammer ” in Indiana.

“City leaders were given absolutely no choice in the matter,” said Mike O’Dell, publisher of the local newspaper, the McCook Gazette.

McCook is the seat of Red Willow County, where voters favored Trump in the 2024 election by nearly 80%. Most of them likely support the president’s immigration crackdown, O’Dell said. However, the city of around 7,000 has also grown accustomed to the camp’s low-level offenders working on roads, in parks, county and city offices and even local schools.

“People here have gotten to know them in many cases,” O’Dell said. “I think there is a feeling here that people want to know where these folks are going to end up and that they’ll be OK.”

The Work Ethic Camp first opened in 2001 and currently houses around 155 inmates who participate in education, treatment and work programs to help them transition to life outside prison. State leaders often praise it as a success story for reducing prisoner recidivism.

Some lawmakers have complained that Pillen acted rashly in offering up the facility, noting that the state’s prison system is already one of the nation’s most overcrowded and perpetually understaffed. The governor’s office and state prison officials met with members of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee last week to answer questions about the transfer.

What the lawmakers got, several said, were estimates and speculation.

Lawmakers were told it was the governor’s office that approached federal officials with the offer after Trump “made a generalized, widespread call that we need more room or something for detainees,” said DeBoer, a Democrat in the officially nonpartisan Legislature.

Lawmakers were also told the facility — which was designed to house around 100 but is currently outfitted to hold twice that — would house between 200 and 300 detainees. The prison’s current staff of 97 is to be retrained and stay on.

The costs of the transition would be borne by the state, with the expectation that the federal government would reimburse that cost, DeBoer recalled.

A formal agreement between the state and federal agency had yet to be signed by Friday.

Asked how much the state is anticipated to spend on the conversion, the agency said “that number has not yet been determined,” but that any state expenditures would be reimbursed. The state plans to hire additional staffers for the center, the agency said.

A letter signed by 13 lawmakers called into question whether Pillen had the authority to unilaterally transfer use of a state prison to federal authorities without legislative approval.

To that end, state Sen. Terrell McKinney — chairman of the Legislature’s Urban Affairs Committee and a vocal critic of Nebraska’s overcrowded prison system — convened a public hearing Friday to seek answers from Pillen’s office and state corrections officials, citing concerns over building code violations that fall under the committee’s purview.

“How can you take a facility that was built for 125 people and take that to a capacity of 200 to 300 people without creating, you know, a security risk?” McKinney asked.

Pillen maintains state law gives him the authority to make the move, saying the Department of Correctional Services falls under the umbrella of the executive branch. He and state prison officials declined to show up at Friday’s hearing.

But dozens of Nebraska residents did attend, with most of them opposed the new ICE detention center.

Beck writes for the Associated Press.

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.

WASHINGTON — When President Trump’s administration last month awarded a contract worth up to $1.2 billion to build and operate what it says will become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex, it didn’t turn to a large government contractor or even a firm that specializes in private prisons.

Instead, it handed the project on a military base to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small business that has no listed experience running a correction facility and had never won a federal contract worth more than $16 million. The company also lacks a functioning website and lists as its address a modest home in suburban Virginia owned by a 77-year-old retired Navy flight officer.

The mystery over the award only deepened last week as the new facility began to accept its first detainees. The Pentagon has refused to release the contract or explain why it selected Acquisition Logistics over a dozen other bidders to build the massive tent camp at Fort Bliss in west Texas. At least one competitor has filed a complaint.

The secretive — and brisk — contracting process is emblematic, experts said, of the government’s broader rush to fulfill the Republican president’s pledge to arrest and deport an estimated 10 million migrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal status. As part of that push, the government is turning increasingly to the military to handle tasks that had traditionally been left to civilian agencies.

A member of Congress who recently toured the camp said she was concerned that such a small and inexperienced firm had been entrusted to build and run a facility expected to house up to 5,000 migrants.

“It’s far too easy for standards to slip,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes Fort Bliss. “Private facilities far too frequently operate with a profit margin in mind as opposed to a governmental facility.”

Attorney Joshua Schnell, who specializes in federal contracting law, said he was troubled that the Trump administration has provided so little information about the facility.

“The lack of transparency about this contract leads to legitimate questions about why the Army would award such a large contract to a company without a website or any other publicly available information demonstrating its ability to perform such a complicated project,” he said.

Ken A. Wagner, the president and CEO of Acquisition Logistics, did not respond to phone messages or emails. No one answered the door at his three-bedroom house listed as his company’s headquarters. Virginia records list Wagner as an owner of the business, though it’s unclear whether he might have partners.

Army declines to release contract

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved using Fort Bliss for the new detention center, and the administration has hopes to build more at other bases. A spokesperson for the Army declined to discuss its deal with Acquisition Logistics or reveal details about the camp’s construction, citing the litigation over the company’s qualifications.

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to answer questions about the detention camp it oversees.

Named Camp East Montana for the closest road, the facility is being built in the sand and scrub Chihuahuan Desert, where summertime temperatures can exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit and heat-related deaths are common. The 60-acre site is near the U.S.-Mexico border and the El Paso International Airport, a key hub for deportation flights.

The camp has drawn comparisons to “Alligator Alcatraz,” a $245 million tent complex erected to hold ICE detainees in the Florida Everglades. That facility has been the subject of complaints about unsanitary conditions and lawsuits. A federal judge recently ordered that facility to be shut down.

The vast majority of the roughly 57,000 migrants detained by ICE are housed at private prisons operated by companies like Florida’s Geo Group and Tennessee-based CoreCivic. As those facilities fill up, ICE is also exploring temporary options at military bases in California, New York and Utah.

At Fort Bliss, construction began within days of the Army issuing the contract on July 18. Site work began months earlier, before Congress had passed Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill, which includes a record $45 billion for immigration enforcement. The Defense Department announcement specified only that the Army was financing the initial $232 million for the first 1,000 beds at the complex.

Three white tents, each about 810 feet long, have been erected, according to satellite imagery examined by the Associated Press. A half dozen smaller buildings surround them.

Setareh Ghandehari, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Detention Watch, said the use of military bases hearkens back to World War II, when Japanese Americans were imprisoned at Army camps including Fort Bliss. She said military facilities are especially prone to abuse and neglect because families and loved ones have difficulty accessing them.

“Conditions at all detention facilities are inherently awful,” Ghandehari said. “But when there’s less access and oversight, it creates the potential for even more abuse.”

Company will be responsible for security

A June 9 solicitation notice for the Fort Bliss project specified the contractor will be responsible for building and operating the detention center, including providing security and medical care. The document also requires strict secrecy, ordering the contractor inform ICE to respond to any calls from members of Congress or the news media.

The bidding was open only to small firms such as Acquisition Logistics, which receives preferential status because it’s classified as a veteran and Hispanic-owned small disadvantaged business.

Though Trump’s administration has fought to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs, federal contracting rules include set-asides for small businesses owned by women or minorities. For a firm to compete for such contracts, at least 51% of it must be owned by people belonging to a federally designated disadvantaged racial or ethnic group.

One of the losing bidders, Texas-based Gemini Tech Services, filed a protest challenging the award and the Army’s rushed construction timeline with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Congress’ independent oversight arm that resolves such disputes.

Gemini alleges Acquisition Logistics lacks the experience, staffing and resources to perform the work, according to a person familiar with the complaint who wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Acquisition Logistics’ past jobs include repairing small boats for the Air Force, providing information technology support to the Defense Department and building temporary offices to aid with immigration enforcement, federal records show.

Gemini and its lawyer didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

A ruling by the GAO on whether to sustain, dismiss or require corrective action is not expected before November. A legal appeal is also pending with a U.S. federal court in Washington.

Schnell, the contracting lawyer, said Acquisitions Logistics may be working with a larger company. Geo Group Inc. and CoreCivic Corp., the nation’s biggest for-profit prison operators, have expressed interest in contracting with the Pentagon to house migrants.

In an earnings call this month, Geo Group CEO George Zoley said his company had teamed up with an established Pentagon contractor. Zoley didn’t name the company, and Geo Group didn’t respond to repeated requests asking with whom it had partnered.

A spokesperson for CoreCivic said it wasn’t partnering with Acquisition Logistics or Gemini.

Biesecker and Goodman write for the Associated Press. Goodman reported from Miami. AP writer Alan Suderman in Richmond, Va., and Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, N.M., contributed to this report.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A top Florida official says the controversial state-run immigration detention facility in the Everglades will likely be empty in a matter of days, even as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration and the federal government fight a judge’s order to shutter the facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by late October. That’s according to an email exchange shared with the Associated Press.

In a message sent to South Florida Rabbi Mario Rojzman on Aug. 22 related to providing chaplaincy services at the facility, Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie said “we are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days.” Rojzman, and the executive assistant who sent the original email to Guthrie, both confirmed the veracity of the messages to the AP.

A spokesperson for Guthrie, whose agency has overseen the construction and operation of the site, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

News that the last detainee at “Alligator Alcatraz” could leave the facility within days comes less than a week after a federal judge in Miami ordered the detention center to wind down operations, with the last detainee needing to be out within 60 days. The state of Florida appealed the decision, and the federal government asked U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams to put her order on hold pending the appeal, saying that the Everglades facility’s thousands of beds were badly needed since detention facilities in Florida were overcrowded.

The environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe, whose lawsuit led to the judge’s ruling, opposed the request. They disputed that the Everglades facility was needed, especially as Florida plans to open a second immigration detention facility in north Florida that DeSantis has dubbed “Deportation Depot.” During a tour of the South Florida facility last week, U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said he was told that only a fraction of the detention center’s capacity was in use, between 300 and 350 detainees.

Williams had not ruled on the stay request as of Wednesday.

The judge said in her order that she expected the population of the facility to decline within 60 days by transferring detainees to other facilities, and once that happened, fencing, lighting and generators should be removed. She wrote the state and federal defendants can’t bring anyone other than those who are already being detained at the facility onto the property.

Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe had argued in their lawsuit that further construction and operations should be stopped until federal and state officials complied with federal environmental laws. Their lawsuit claimed the facility threatened environmentally sensitive wetlands that are home to protected plants and animals and would reverse billions of dollars spent over decades on environmental restoration.

The detention center was built rapidly two months ago at a lightly used, single-runway training airport in the middle of the rugged and remote Everglades. State officials have signed more than $245 million in contracts for building and operating the facility, which officially opened July 1.

Payne and Schneider write for the Associated Press. Schneider reported from Orlando, Fla.