Governor Ron DeSantis will visit the Alligator Alcatraz detention facility in the Everglades on Friday morning where he will hold a news conference.
The governor will be joined by Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie, Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Wilton Simpson, Department of Financial Services Chief Officer Blaise Ingoglia and the state’s Board of Immigration Enforcement Executive Director Larry Keefe.
It is unclear what will be discussed. The news conference is schedule to start at 9 a.m.
Deadline for detention center answers
The visit comes on the day of a deadline, set by the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, for information on the detention center.
In a letter to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier wrote, “We will not be answering your questions.”
Durbin was demanding answers after his office released a report about overcrowding and inhumane conditions at Miami’s federal detention center and the Krome Detention Center.
Calls for Alligator Alcatraz to be shut down
Last Tuesday, several Florida nonprofits, medical professionals, public health experts and families of detainees held at the Alligator Alcatraz called for the site to be shut down due to what they called inhumane conditions and environmental damage.
Demonstrators raised concerns about detainees suffering in blistering heat with limited medical care.
“We name it a concentration camp built on stolen indigenous land,” said activist Ruth Jean Noel.
Detainee Rafael Colado, who spoke by phone from inside the facility, compared it to a dog cage and said he sometimes goes days without a shower.
“There’s no set schedule to get his medicine for high blood pressure and there’s water coming into his tent,” said Colado.
Alligator Alcatraz detainees report poor conditions inside detention center
Tents are used to house the detainees at the hastily constructed camp erected at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Big Cypress National Preserve.
Detainees have said the cages where they are forced to sleep are crowded and the food is sub-standard. Some have said they’ve gone days without showering or getting prescription medicine, and at times the air conditioners for the tents abruptly shut off in the sweltering heat. They’ve said their drinking water comes from toilet spigots and sometimes the toilets back up, spilling feces onto the ground.
Armen Henderson, executive director at Dade County Street Response, said the conditions are a blatant assault on human rights.
“By imprisoning innocent people in tents surrounded by fences and barbed wire, with no proper sanitation, it is nothing less than a concentration camp. This is a public health crisis unfolding in our own backyard,” he said in a statement.
Florida officials deny accusations of inhumane treatment at Alligator Alcatraz
Florida officials have denied the allegations, and say facility meets the standards required by law.
“There is a 24/7, fully staffed medical facility with pharmacy on site and there is working air conditioning throughout the facility,” a spokesperson for the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) told CBS News Miami on July 18.
FDEM was the engine behind Alligator Alcatraz, using the state’s emergency management tools and funding to build, staff and operate the detention facility.
The state has estimated it will cost roughly $450 million a year to operate the detention facility.
