Overview

• Detainees allege maggot-infested meals, flooding toilets, lack of showers and constant lighting in chain-link enclosures under tents
• Attorneys and Democratic lawmakers have been refused entry and limited to recorded phone calls, raising due process concerns
• Environmental and tribal groups have filed lawsuits arguing the center bypassed standard reviews on protected Everglades land
• State officials defend the facility’s conditions and have publicized convictions for murder, rape and gang offenses among some detainees
• A bipartisan delegation of state legislators and members of Congress will tour the remote site this Saturday to assess conditions firsthand