Migrants at Miami-area detention centers have faced a variety of abuses, including being shackled and forced to eat food from styrofoam plates “like dogs,” according to a recent report from Human Rights Watch.
The latter incident occurred at Federal Detention Center Miami, a facility operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to the report, migrants were forced into holding cells for a prolonged amount of time and denied lunch until 7 p.m. When the food was brought to them, their hands remained shackled while the food was placed on styrofoam plates on folding chairs.
“We had to eat like animals,” one detainee named Pedro shared.
A similar incident was reported at the Krome North service processing center in West Miami. According to Human Rights Watch, migrants were kept in a room, had their hands zip-tied, and were again made to eat off of chairs.
“We had to bend over and eat off the chairs with our mouths, like dogs,” one man said.
At the same facility, detainees claimed that overcrowding led to some being people being kept on a bus in the parking lot for over 24 hours. Reportedly, they were only allowed to be unshackled when using the bus toilet, which quickly became unusable.
“The bus became disgusting,” one man claimed. “It contained a single toilet that did not really flush. It was the type of toilet in which normally people only urinate. But because we were on the bus for so long, and we were not permitted to leave it, others defecated in the toilet. Because of this, the whole bus smelled strongly of feces.”
These long-standing facilities were joined this month by a slapdash detention camp in the Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” The facility has drawn criticism for alleged human rights abuses as well as its hygiene.
A recent report from the Miami Herald found that, of roughly 700 hundred individuals held there, more than 250 do not have any criminal record. These numbers put the lie to President Donald Trump’s claims of the facility being made to house “some of the most vicious people on the planet,” and “deranged psycopaths.”
