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'This Is an Internment Camp': Lawmakers Horrified by Inhumane Conditions in 'Alligator Alcatraz'
"I saw 32 people per cage—about 6 cages in one tent. People were yelling, 'Help me, help me'," said Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost.
Jul 13, 2025
For the first time, Democratic lawmakers were allowed to tour U.S. President Donald Trump's sprawling Everglades immigrant detention center on Saturday. They said what they witnessed was "disturbing" and "disgusting."
After Democrats were previously denied entry to the facility known as "Alligator Alcatraz," three Democratic congresspeople from Florida—Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Jared Moskowitz, and Maxwell Frost—journeyed to the remote compound along with another group of Republicans as part of a state-arranged tour.
"Alligator Alcatraz" was erected within a matter of weeks and now contains approximately 900 people who have been rounded up as part of Trump's "mass deportation" crusade, which a court determined was rife with illegal racial profiling.
The administration said they hope to fill the camp with as many as 5,000 people at a time.
Detainees have previously described heinous conditions to their attorneys, including worm and maggot-infested food, sweltering heat, and the denial of medication and showers for days at a time.
Though the Democrats who visited the facility were not allowed to speak with detainees or see their conditions up close, their descriptions of the facilities at a press conference following the visit paint an appalling picture.
- YouTube
Wasserman-Schultz described it as an "internment camp" where detainees are "essentially packed into cages."
"Wall-to-wall humans. 32 detainees per cage," she said. This, she noted, is unusual for immigration facilities, like the nearby Krome detention center in Miami-Dade County, where detainees are allowed to roam freely between buildings.
"The only thing inside those cages are their bunk beds," she said. She later noted that in the unused dorm they toured there were already "bugs all over the mattresses that had not yet been used."
"There are three tiny toilet units that have a sink attached to it," she said. "They get their drinking water, and they brush their teeth where they poop, in the same unit," she continued.
Frost said the lawmakers asked to view the toilets currently in use by detainees, but were denied and instead showed ones in a currently unused part of the facility.
He brought up prior complaints made by prisoners of the camp about the sanitation.
"Some of the biggest complaints we've heard is, yes, there's three toilets, but a lot of the time, only one is working," he said. "They get backed up: Feces being spread everywhere."
Wasserman-Schultz said they also viewed a meal-prep area. While employees of the facility were given large, hearty portions, she says prisoners were fed a "small...gray turkey and cheese sandwich, an apple, and chips" that she said was far too small to sustain a fully-grown man.
Wasserman-Schultz also said she brought a thermostat to measure the temperature within the facility, which the Department of Homeland Security has claimed was "air conditioned." She said that the area just outside the tents that housed the detainees was 83°F and said it was likely much hotter inside due to the body heat.
Moskowitz said there was "evidence of flooding" and "floors that are only about eight inches above the ground," while other lawmakers noted that a hurricane or even a lighter tropical storm could prove catastrophic.
Last week, videos circulated on social media of the facility already beginning to flood due to a minor storm:
Moskowitz also noted the extraordinary cost to assemble and run the makeshift facility, which is estimated to cost $450 million per year according to one U.S. official who spoke to The Associated Press.
"Why are they spending all this money for this?" he asked. "One can't help but understand and conclude that this is a total cruel political stunt meant to have a spectacle of political theater."
The Trump administration has described the facility as a holding tank for "the worst of the worst" criminals as they await deportation. But according to reporting by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times on Sunday, only a third of the people in the facility have criminal convictions, which range from crimes like attempted murder to traffic violations. More than 250 of the people in the facility have not been convicted of or even charged with a crime.
No outside journalists have been allowed to tour the facility, and there are no photos or videos available publicly beyond what has been released by the Trump government. The congresspeople on the tour were told they were not allowed to take any photos or videos inside or meet with any of the detainees.
Instead of being shown the conditions in which detainees were currently being housed, they were shown facilities that had not yet been filled. They were still denied access to some, including medical facilities.
Last week a group of Democrats in Florida's state legislature were turned away when they attempted to tour the camp, with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) saying they could not show up unannounced to perform oversight over a federal facility.
Frost said that there has been "ambiguity" about who has authority over the prison, but it was made abundantly clear during the visit that every decision being made was directed by the federal government.
"What we heard very clear is that ICE is giving them the directions from A to Z," he said. "Which means members of Congress are able to come here unannounced. And we will come here unannounced."
"Even with this invitation, so much was kept from us," Frost said.
In a video filmed while riding back from the camp, Frost spoke even more candidly about what he saw and how much it disturbed him.
Though the congresspeople were not given access to the detainees and "pushed back" by security guards, Frost said, "We could see in, and we could hear everybody."
"When those doors opened, what I saw made my heart sink," he said. "I saw a lot of people, young men, who looked like me."
"People were yelling, 'Help me, help me!' I heard in the back someone say, 'I'm a U.S. citizen,'" he continued. "And as we were walking away, they started chanting 'Libertad! Libertad! Libertad!'... 'Freedom.'"
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12 House Dems Join GOP to Approve Tax Gift to Rich Alongside Israel Aid for Gaza Slaughter
"Instead of funding more bombs with American taxpayer dollars," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib, "our leaders should be calling for a ceasefire now, before this violence claims thousands more lives."
Nov 03, 2023
A dozen House Democrats on Thursday evening joined with nearly every Republican in the chamber to approve legislation that would provide $14.3 in military aid to Israel while cutting an equal amount from IRS funding that would be used to target wealthy individuals who avoid taxes—a cut to the agency that would act as a revenue destroyer, not an offset.
Despite the bill being dead-on-arrival in the U.S. Senate, it passed the House in a 226-196 vote, with 12 Democrats voting in favor along with 214 Republicans, and just two Republicans voting with the 194 Democrats who said nay. President Joe Biden has also vowed to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.
Dubbing the House Democrats who crossed the aisle as the "Tax Cheat Twelve," David Dayen of The American Prospect detailed in his coverage how the group "received a combined $8 million in campaign support from [pro-Israel lobby group] AIPAC and its affiliates last year."
"Not only do some of my colleagues want to send more weapons to carry out war crimes and violations of international law, but they want to do it by providing tax breaks to billionaires and undermining crucial investments in our communities."
—Rep. Rashida Tlaib
The Democrats who voted with Republicans are: Reps. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Jared Moskowitz (Fla.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), Lois Frankel (Fla.), Jared Golden (Me.), Juan Vargas (Calif.), Angie Craig (Minn.), Darren Soto (Fla.), Haley Stevens (Mich.), Frederica Wilson (Fla.), Don Davis (N.C.) and Greg Landsman (Ohio).
While the bill has little or no chance of becoming law, Dayen observed that the group "stuck to their principles" by joining with the Republicans anyway.
Defenders of Palestinian rights horrified by the ongoing onslaught in Gaza criticized all those who voted in favor of the bill.
Progressive Democrats—including Reps. Tashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Summer Lee (D-Pa.)—spoke out forcefully against funding Israeli military operations at a time the IDF is bombing the besieged Gaza Strip without mercy following the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that claimed as many as 1,400 lives. Latest figures put the Palestinian death toll in Gaza well above 9,000 people, including nearly 4,000 children, with thousands more wounded or missing under the rubble.
"The American people do not support funding for war crimes—like the use of white phosphorus bombs—and are calling for a ceasefire," Tlaib said in a statement following Thursday night's vote.
"As the Israeli government carries out ethnic cleansing in Gaza, President Biden is cheering on Netanyahu, whose own citizens are protesting his refusal to support a ceasefire," she continued. "We must be laser focused on saving lives, no matter their faith or ethnicity. The number of children killed in Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world's conflict zones since 2019—yet instead of helping end this violence, President Biden baselessly casts doubt on the Palestinian death toll."
Earlier this week, as Common Dreams reported, a CBO score of the proposal showed that the $14.3 billion cut to the IRS would actually slash federal revenues by $27 billion.
Explaining her no vote, Congresswoman Bush tweeted, "I was sent to Congress to save lives, I was not sent to Congress to have my constituent's tax dollars buy bombs to kill thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women, and children. We choose peace and love."
And Rep. Summer Lee said: "I refuse to spend more money on weapons of war and tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy at the expense of children in Pennsylvania, Gaza, and Israel when what is needed now is investment in American families, de-escalation of violence, diplomacy, and humanitarian aid."
According to Tlaib, increased U.S. military aid for the Israel while it carries out the attack on Gaza, with no humanitarian conditions, takes "us farther away from ending the violence and reaching peace" in the region.
"Achieving a just and lasting peace requires lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the dehumanizing system of apartheid," Tlaib said. "Not only do some of my colleagues want to send more weapons to carry out war crimes and violations of international law, but they want to do it by providing tax breaks to billionaires and undermining crucial investments in our communities. Instead of funding more bombs with American taxpayer dollars, our leaders should be calling for a ceasefire now, before this violence claims thousands more lives."
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While Nation Watched Mueller, Hearing Down the Hall Focused on 'Harmful Chaos' and Real Victims of Trump Era
"Numerous studies have demonstrated the long-term effects of adverse childhood experiences on children's developing neural networks and their physical health," one expert said of the administration's family separation policies
Jul 24, 2019
As political observers focused on a pair of congressional hearings Wednesday featuring former special counsel Robert Mueller recounting the contents of his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, another hearing involving the victims of the Trump administration's immigration policies was going on down the hall.
The House Appropriations Committee's Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing, which didn't earn the kind of media coverage Mueller's hearing did, painted a dire picture of conditions for migrant children separated from their families and placed under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and Health and Human Services (HHS) in facilities like Florida's Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children.
"A posted bulletin board had timelines for when staff would notify ICE about kids approaching their 18th birthdays," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.). "These children had to be transferred out of Homestead and ORR care and we were told these young adults are arrested by ICE, handcuffed, and sent to an adult ICE prison."
"Children often dread this date," Wasserman Schultz said. "Many become suicidal as the date nears."
Wasserman Schultz, a critic of Homestead, described her concerns over Homestead, including that the company running the facility--Comprehensive Health Services, a subsidiary of Caliburn, where, Common Dreams reported in May, former Chief of Staff to President Donald Trump John Kelly sits on the board--appeared disinterested in education programs and proper care for the children housed there. The congresswoman, who visited the facility earlier in July, also said the shelters were not prepared to stand up to major storms.
"We're in the middle of hurricane season, and many of the shelters for children are tents," said Wasserman Schultz.
The hearing also featured testimony from Amnesty International's executive director Margaret Huang and Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, the president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.
Huang, in her prepared remarks, railed against the Trump administration's treatment of immigrants and use of family separation as a deterrence tactic.
"Though domestic and international law require family unity to be preserved wherever possible, the government has adopted practices that do exactly the opposite," said Huang, "jeopardizing family unity and needlessly prolonging child detention by separating caregivers from children and implementing an information-sharing agreement between DHS and ORR that places potential sponsors at risk of deportation."
"These practices are not only antithetical to the principle of the best interests of the child," Huang added, "they have also proliferated the use of 'temporary emergency' facilities when the only 'emergency' is a crisis of the administration's making."
In her comments (pdf) to the subcommittee, Vignarajah said that children experience mental and emotional strain from family separation.
"The harmful chaos created during the zero-tolerance policy that led to separating thousands of children from their families without any plan for reunification is anathema to this nation's values and an abdication of modern-day child welfare protections," said Vignarajah.
The problem continues, she added, despite government assurances.
"Although the zero-tolerance policy was officially rescinded on June 20, 2018, we are deeply troubled by the fact that we continue to encounter such cases," Vignarajah said.
Watch the full hearing:
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