Overview
- The HRW report documents forced kneeling, shackling, overcrowded cells and maggot-infested meals across multiple Florida detention centers.
- Critically ill detainees have been transferred without essential medications, leading to at least one collapse and the death of Marie Ange Blaise after guards ignored her calls for help.
- Overcrowding surged by 40 percent since January to more than 56,000 daily detainees, straining capacity at facilities that in some cases saw inmate populations triple.
- The newly opened “Alligator Alcatraz” facility has reported water shortages, constant lighting, bans on religious practices and refusal of medication for detainees with valid documents.
- Legal challenges have intensified with federal courts scrutinizing deportation orders and environmental groups filing Endangered Species Act lawsuits over camps built in ecologically sensitive Everglades wetlands.