COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. — While lawmakers visited the Alligator Alcatraz detention facility in Southwest Florida last weekend, a woman desperately seeking information about her husband, waited outside the gate.
Fox 4's Eric Lovelace spoke to the woman at the facility:
Benita Mendoza traveled from Miami to the facility located along U.S. 41, hoping to learn more about her husband's condition after he was detained for more than a week.
"It's bad, very bad," Mendoza said in Spanish.
Mendoza told me her husband, Jordin Castillo-Marquez, has been detained at the facility for 10 days.
"He's been here for 10 days," she said.
According to Mendoza, communication with detainees is limited to sporadic overnight phone calls from their loved ones.
"He always call me in the last days, he called me at 12:40am, I'm waiting for the call from him," she said.
Mendoza claims conditions inside the facility are brutal, a sentiment echoed by Democratic lawmakers who toured the facility on Saturday and described it as "horrific."
However, Republican lawmaker Blaise Ingoglia contradicted these accounts, defending the facility's conditions.
"The bed in there is more comfy than my bed at home," Ingoglia said.
We spoke with an ICE representative who confirmed the ICE Miami Field Office is handling Castillo-Marquez's case. We called the office but have not yet received a response. The ICE representative said the database that tracks detainees is not currently populating.
However, documents obtained by the Miami Herald confirm show Castillo-Marquez is being held at the facility.
Court records Fox 4 obtained show that Castillo-Marquez has been arrested for battery, drug possession, and driving with a revoked license, but was never convicted of a violent crime.
This appears to contradict statements made by President Trump about the purpose of the facility.
"Very soon this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet," Trump said.
We've reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and are still waiting for a response.
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