Migrants held at a federal immigration jail in downtown Miami were shackled with their hands tied behind their backs and forced to kneel to eat food off chairs, “like dogs”, according to a damning new report published on Monday.
The report, compiled by advocacy groups Human Rights Watch, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and Sanctuary of the South, details alleged abuses across three overcrowded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centres in South Florida. It draws on interviews with dozens of current and former detainees.
In one harrowing account, Pedro, a detainee at the Miami federal detention centre, described how dozens of men were confined in a holding cell for hours without food, before finally being fed around 7pm, still shackled. “We had to eat like animals,” he said.
The report paints a bleak picture of widespread neglect, degrading treatment, and overcrowding at ICE facilities in the state since January. At the Krome North service processing centre in West Miami, female detainees were reportedly forced to use toilets in full view of male detainees and were denied access to gender-appropriate care, showers, or sufficient food.
Conditions were so overcrowded that transferring detainees were allegedly held on a bus outside the centre for over 24 hours. Men and women were confined together, unshackled only to use a single toilet, which quickly became unusable. One man described the resulting stench: “Because we were not permitted to leave [the bus], others defecated in the toilet. The whole bus smelled strongly of faeces.”
Upon finally entering the facility, detainees said they were placed in a freezing intake room known as la hielera, “the ice box”, where many were forced to sleep for up to 12 days on concrete floors without bedding or warm clothing. Every available space, including visitation rooms, was converted into makeshift holding areas. “A few were so full men couldn’t even sit, all had to stand,” said Andrea, a former detainee.
At the Broward Transitional Centre in Pompano Beach, where 44 year old Haitian woman Marie Ange Blaise died in April, detainees reported being denied adequate medical and psychological care. The report describes delayed treatment for chronic conditions and hostile or indifferent staff behaviour.
In one particularly disturbing incident in April at the downtown Miami jail, a “disturbance control team” allegedly attacked detainees protesting a lack of medical attention to a fellow migrant who was coughing up blood. Staff reportedly turned off a surveillance camera before the assault, during which one detainee suffered a broken finger.
All three facilities are described as severely overcrowded, prompting Florida officials to approve the rapid construction of the controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” jail in the Everglades. The facility is designed to eventually house up to 5,000 undocumented migrants awaiting deportation.
According to the report, national immigration detention figures averaged 56,400 per day as of mid-June, nearly three-quarters of whom had no criminal history. That figure marks a significant increase from the 2024 daily average of 37,500 detainees, Human Rights Watch noted.
Advocates say the documented abuses are part of a broader escalation under president Donald Trump, who resumed office in January and swiftly ramped up immigration enforcement.
“The anti-immigrant escalation and enforcement tactics under the Trump administration are terrorising communities and ripping families apart,” said Katie Blankenship, immigration attorney and co-founder of Sanctuary of the South. “The rapid, chaotic, and cruel approach to arresting and locking people up is literally deadly and causing a human rights crisis that will plague this state and the entire country for years to come.”
