Inside 'Alligator Alcatraz,' detainees report relentless mosquitoes, limited water [View all]

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 administration’s 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 nation’s 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 state’s Department of Corrections.

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$450 million detention center