Collier County, Fla. (WFLA) – A group of Democrats said they suspended entry into Florida’s new immigration detention facility known as the “Alligator Alcatraz” on Thursday.
“Despite statutory authority to access prisons and detention facilities, today we have been denied access to visit the newly constructed immigration detention centre in the Everglades,” D-Orlando MP Anna Eskamani wrote in a Facebook post.
First immigrant detainees arrive at Florida Center in the Everglades
Lawmakers said state officials cited “safety concerns” as reasons for not entering the facility. The group continued to discuss with state officials and said they eventually hung up the phone.
The group questioned the safety of the facility, and Eskamani said, “If the detention centre is not safe for us as lawmakers, how is it safe for those in detention?”
The lawmaker spoke with a reporter outside the detention center on Thursday. Eskamani allegedly reported flooding at the facility, with claims that there were no running water or plumbing.
“We have a legal right to inspect this facility. Instead, the DeSantis administration is hiding behind barbed wire and bad intentions,” says Rep. Michelle Rayner, D-ST. Petersburg wrote in X’s post. “This is not an immigration policy, it’s not a real-time authoritarian policy.”
Eskamani said the group is planning to “continue to request responses and access.”
The first group of detainees arrived at the detention centre on Thursday. Deep in Florida’s swamps, the site was previously an airport used for training, but in eight days it transformed into an immigrant detention facility.
It is said to hold up to 3,000 detainees.
President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis toured the facility before it opened Tuesday. Photos from inside show bunk beds surrounded by chain link fences in an air-conditioned tent.
News Channel 8 has reached out to us for comments from the Governor’s office or the Attorney General’s office.
