Related Video: Lawsuit filed by lawmakers denied access to “Wannial Catraz”
O’Copy, Fla. (AP) — Democrats denounced Florida’s new Everglades immigration detention center after a visit placed in the state on Saturday, describing the crowded, sanitary, bug-fest-stretched facility officials called “Alligator Alcatraz.” Republicans on the same tour said he saw nothing of that kind.
The tour comes after some Democrats were early blocked from seeing a 3,000-bed detention center that was rapidly constructed on an isolated runway surrounded by Swamplands. With so many state legislators and members of the legislative assembly appearing on Saturday, they were split into multiple groups to see the facility.
“There’s a really hindering, sleazy situation and this place needs to close hell,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, told reporters after his visit. “This place is a stunt and they abuse humans here.”
The 32-man cage-style unit shared three combinations of toilet sink devices, with visitors measuring temperatures at 83 degrees (28 degrees Celsius) in one area billed as aerial conditions and grasshoppers and other insects, she and other Democrats said.
Visitors said they were unable to speak to detainees, but Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Democrat from Florida, said he called out, “I’m an American!” And others recite the Spanish word “Libertad!”, “freedom.”
State Sen. Blaze Ingoglier, a Republican from Florida, countered that he saw a well-run, safe facility with clean residential areas and air conditioning. He said that when visitors showed up, a handful of detainees got “a little loud” but didn’t understand what they were saying.
“The rhetoric that comes out of Democrats doesn’t match reality,” he said on the phone. “It’s not the four seasons, it’s the detention center.”
Journalists were not permitted on tours, and lawmakers were instructed not to bring phones or cameras inside.
Messages seeking comment have been sent to the state’s Emergency Management Office that built the facility and to the representatives of Gov. Ron Desantis. Molly, a spokesman for Desantis, highlighted one of Ingoglia’s bright readings on social media.
DeSantis and fellow Republicans promoted a set of detention centers in between, accumulating tents, trailers and temporary buildings built in days, in an efficient and assembled response to President Donald Trump’s call for expulsion of the U.S. The first detainees arrived on July 3rd after Trump toured the facility and praised it.
Described as temporary, the detention center aims to help the Republican presidential administration achieve its goal of increasing the US immigrant detention capacity from 41,000 to at least 100,000. The remote location of the Florida facility and its name – a nod to the infamous Alcatraz Prison that once housed federal prisoners in California – aims to underscore the message of blocking illegal immigration.
Prior to the facility’s opening, state officials said detainees have access to medical care, consistent air conditioning, recreation yards, lawyers and clergy members.
But detainees, their relatives and defenders told The Associated Press that conditions are terrible when worm-stained food, toilets overflowing on the floor, mosquitoes erupt around fenced scenery, and air conditioners, sometimes shut down in the summer heat of South Florida. One man told his wife that the detainee would go for a few days without taking a shower.
Stephanie Hartman, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Emergency Management, called these explanations “completely false,” saying detainees always get three meals a day, unlimited drinking water, a shower and other essentials.
“The facility meets all the required standards and is functioning properly,” she said.
Five Democrats said they tried to visit the site when it opened on July 3 but were denied access. The state then arranged a Saturday tour.
Lawmakers pleaded for denial, saying that DeSantis’ administration was blocking the lawmakers’ supervisory bodies. A Desantis spokesperson calls the lawsuit “Dumb.”
He said that when Democrat officials head to the facility they are expected to be given a limited view of sanitized.
Wasserman Schultz told reporters that lawmakers came anyway because they wanted to ask questions and get a sense of structure and conditions.
