'We Had to Eat Like Dogs': Report Details 'Abusive Practices' at Florida Immigrant Prisons

A new report released Monday by Human Rights Watch details what the organization describes as "abusive practices" at three immigrant detention facilities in the state of Florida.

The report documents conditions for detained immigrants at Florida's Krome North Service Processing Center (Krome), the Broward Transitional Center (BTC), and the Federal Detention Center (FDC) during the period of January through June of this year, and it alleges that all three facilities "flagrantly violate international human rights standards and the United States government's own immigration detention standards."

Among other things, the report shows that the number of detainees at the facilities at times has been up to three times their operational capacity and includes stories from detainees who describe being shackled for prolonged periods of time on buses without access to food, water, or functioning toilets. Detainees also said they were forced to sleep on cold concrete floors under constant fluorescent lighting and were denied access to basic hygiene and healthcare.

"This report finds that staff at the three detention facilities researchers examined subjected detained individuals to dangerously substandard medical care, overcrowding, abusive treatment, and restrictions on access to legal and psychosocial support," writes Human Rights Watch. "Officers denied detainees critical medication and detained some incommunicado in solitary confinement as an apparent punishment for seeking mental health care."

Human Rights Watch collected information for its report from interviews with 11 current or former detainees at the facilities, as well as with family members of detainees and more than a dozen immigration lawyers. One woman detained at the Krome facility described being subjected to unsanitary conditions when she first arrived there in late January.

"There was only one toilet, and it was covered in feces," she said. "We begged the officers to let us clean it, but they just said sarcastically, 'Housekeeping will come soon.' No one ever came."

Detainees at the facilities—two of which are operated by private companies with Immigration and Customs Enforcement oversight—also described being subjected to cruel and degrading treatment by their guards, including one man who described himself and his fellow detainees being forced to eat meals with their hands shackled behind their backs.

"We had to bend over and eat off the chairs with our mouths, like dogs," he told Human Rights Watch.

Detainees also said that people who made requests for mental health treatment were regularly sent off to solitary confinement as punishment.

"If you ask for help, they isolate you," one woman explained to Human Rights Watch. "If you cry, they might take you away for two weeks. So, people stay silent."

The Human Rights Watch report on conditions at Florida detention centers comes just weeks after Florida opened a new mass detention facility for immigrants dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" that has already drawn complaints of cruel and degrading treatment from both detainees and from local lawmakers who have visited the facility.

"I saw 32 people per cage—about six cages in one tent," said Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) after a trip to the facility earlier this month. "People were yelling, 'Help me, help me.'"