A humanitarian group is accusing the state of Florida of violating international law due to the treatment of detainees at the migrant detention facility in Collier County, dubbed Alligator Alcatraz.
The report from Amnesty International says detainees were shackled inside a 2-foot-tall metal cage and left outside without water for up to a day at a time. However, the Governor's office says no such box or cage exists at the facility.
Amnesty International plans to send the report to Congress and the United Nations later this week, demanding an independent investigation into Alligator Alcatraz along with the Krome North Services Processing Center in Miami.
"Alligator Alcatraz operates outside federal oversight, without the basic tracking systems used in ICE facilities. The absence of registration or tracking mechanisms for those detained at Alligator Alcatraz facilitates incommunicado detention and constitutes enforced disappearances when the whereabouts of a person being detained there is denied to their family, and they are not allowed to contact their lawyer," the report states.
"These despicable and nauseating conditions at Alligator Alcatraz reflect a pattern of deliberate neglect designed to dehumanize and punish those detained there," said Amy Fischer, Amnesty International's Director of Refugee and Migrant Rights.
"This is unreal – where's the oversight?" Amy Fischer said.
A spokesperson with the Governor's office says the report is "nothing more than a politically motivated attack."
"None of these fabrications are true. In fact, running these allegations without any evidence whatsoever could jeopardize the safety and security of our staff and those being housed at Alligator Alcatraz," the spokesperson said.
“Alligator Alcatraz” at the moment lives in legal limbo. That’s after Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in September, put a hold on a lower-court order that had required the state and federal government to shut down and dismantle the site within 60 days.
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