Watchdog: ICE Held Detainees in Phone-Booth Cages
Watchdog: ICE Held Detainees in Phone-Booth Cages
The News
The Department of Homeland Security's internal watchdog has found that some immigrant detainees at Florida's now-shuttered "Alligator Alcatraz" facility were confined in outdoor metal cages only slightly larger than a telephone booth, according to a new inspector general report reported Monday.
NBC News reported that detainees were kept in the cages for more than an hour at a time.
The New York Times reported that the report describes the small cages being used as "calming areas."
Timeline
Amnesty International published a report alleging mistreatment at the Florida facility; Raw Story reported that the inspector general's findings corroborate it.
The Alligator Alcatraz detention center is shut down. It is described in all accounts as now-shuttered.
The DHS inspector general's findings on conditions at the facility become public, with NBC News, The New York Times, Mediaite and Raw Story reporting the details.
The cages were outdoors and made of metal, and were roughly the size of a telephone booth — smaller, Raw Story reported, than a solitary confinement cell.
Mediaite reported that the inspector general concluded ICE's use of the cramped outdoor cages to punish deportees was not "humane."
What the Report Found
Reactions
The finding is notable because it comes from the Trump administration's own watchdog office rather than from outside critics — a point emphasized in the coverage by both Raw Story and Mediaite.
Raw Story characterized the enclosures as "torture" cages and said the inspector general confirmed for the first time what rights groups had alleged.
No response from the Department of Homeland Security or ICE was included in the source reports reviewed for this article.
What's Next
Inspector general findings of this kind typically carry recommendations to the department and draw congressional attention, and Democrats on the homeland security committees have made detention conditions a recurring line of inquiry.
The facility itself is already closed, so the practical question now is whether the practices the watchdog documented were used at other detention sites still in operation.
More
"Alligator Alcatraz" was the nickname for the remote Florida detention center built in the Everglades to hold immigration detainees. It became one of the most visible symbols of the administration's detention buildout before it was shut down.
The story is being covered across the spectrum: NBC News and The New York Times (center-left), Mediaite (center) and Raw Story (left) all carried the inspector general's findings within hours of each other.
Poll
Should Congress investigate whether outdoor cages were used at other detention facilities?
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