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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsInside 'Alligator Alcatraz,' detainees report relentless mosquitoes, limited water
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/07/16/alligator-alcatraz-conditions/Inside Alligator Alcatraz, detainees report relentless mosquitoes, limited water
Former guards at the facility cited limited fresh water and clogged toilets among the problems at the remote detention center.
July 16, 2025 at 7:04 p.m. EDT
By Lori Rozsa, David Ovalle and Rachel Hatzipanagos
Two weeks after it opened, a temporary migrant detention center in the Everglades is facing expensive logistical challenges: portable toilets routinely back up, sewage needs to be collected and trucked out, and swarms of mosquitoes attack detainees and staff alike.
Without permanent structures, electricity or running water, drinking and bathing water has to be brought in several times a day but is still in short supply, and rainwater leaks into the tents that protect detainees chain-link cells, according to interviews with three former guards and phone interviews with detainees.
Their accounts offer details of conditions inside the $450 million detention center, which has become a symbol for the Trump administrations aggressive immigration enforcement policies and been dubbed Alligator Alcatraz by Republicans. Five other states are considering using the site as a model, said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement prepares to double the nations immigrant detention capacity to 100,000 beds.
Three former guards at the facility said they were attracted to the job because of its pay online ads and a hiring document reviewed by The Washington Post show they were offered $26 an hour plus generous overtime: $39 an hour.
Prison guards in Florida typically earn about $22 an hour, according to the states Department of Corrections.
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$450 million detention center

vapor2
(2,754 posts)Igel
(37,015 posts)I teach high school. The faculty men's bathrooms aren't locked. A few times a year I walk in and find the toilets overflowing because somebody took a roll of TP, mashed it, and shoved it into the toilet--then took a crap and flushed a couple of times. From time to time during lunch it's meals and utensils.
Probably not a teacher. Or principal. Oh, gee, a lot of the students, esp. resentful, angry young men, don't like being there and take out revenge on the mostly black and brown custodians. Sort of warped sense of justice. The faculty just go a couple hundred extra feet to a bathroom kept locked (but we have keys for).
Any chance there are a lot of angry, resentful men at the detention camp in FL? Except in their case, it probably is guards having to clean up their mess.
Seen it infrequently on airplanes, too, where some idiot just didn't realize that all the he (I'm guessing a 'he') didn't realize that the toilet wasn't a trashcan.
Overflowing, that's a different issue and one that's easy to manage.
Norrrm
(2,522 posts)But not enough money to waste on adequate water?
Cha
(313,258 posts)Fried Orange Traitor needs some Karmic Retribution unloaded on his existence.
ananda
(32,652 posts)How do they get people to work there?
Alice B.
(570 posts)ananda
(32,652 posts)And probably more.
Alice B.
(570 posts)ananda
(32,652 posts)Especially with this many people on such a large scale.
fujiyamasan
(513 posts)Trump knew they could get away with anything.
Hugin
(36,698 posts)Except that the taxpayers are picking up the $1M membership fees. Nice!
canetoad
(19,321 posts)Of dysentery and worse. Typhus, TB, Covid .....
GReedDiamond
(5,472 posts)canetoad
(19,321 posts)Just when you think it can't become any worse.
BaronChocula
(3,033 posts)it's like referring to people by their demographic epithet in quotes. The name Alligator Alcatraz was concocted by an angry, cynical, racist, maga florida AG as a cute little joke. What's happening there is not funny and every time media refers to it by that name gives that hellbound scumbag props.
tishaLA
(14,677 posts)Call it the everglades internment camp or detention center. Journalists too willingly use their discursive paradigms, like the did with the budget bill that's gutting Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP. Even our names for it, like big ugly bill or whatever, used the administration's name as a referent.
I know this is somewhat tangential but I feel like the reflexive use of their terminology puts us at an immediate disadvantage.
BaronChocula
(3,033 posts)It's right on point.
JonAndKatePlusABird
(358 posts)Well said, fully agree!
dalton99a
(89,588 posts)
BaronChocula
(3,033 posts)- Keeping black people from voting
- Running yourself over with your own car
- Marrying your ex's sibling before before the divorce is final
- Making an insurance claim after your meth lab blows up
- Clip-on rattails
malaise
(287,129 posts)Last edited Thu Jul 17, 2025, 08:30 AM - Edit history (1)
and the mess that will follow a tropical,storm/hurricane.
So nice that ReTHUGs and their financiers are enriching themselves with their concentration camp.
Torchlight
(5,190 posts)now used only as lining in the litterbox. They're having a tough time this year playing the Sanctimony card as well as the I'd Kill You All If I Could card both in the same hand.
Call.