A former employee at the notorious Alligator Alcatraz immigrant detention center is speaking out against the facility, describing horrid conditions and “inhumane” treatment of detainees.
The employee, identified only by her first name, Lindsey, spoke with South Florida NBC affiliate NBC6. Documentation provided to NBC6 shows that Lindsey arrived at the facility in the Big Cypress Swamp on July 6, employed as a corrections officer through GardaWorld Federal Services, contracted out to provide security.
Lindsey called the scene she saw upon arrival as “overwhelming,” adding, “I thought it would get better. But it just never did.”
She described the cages in which detainees were held as “an oversized kennel.”
“They have no sunlight. There’s no clock in there. They don’t even know what time of the day it is,” Lindsey said of the holding areas. “They have no access to showers. They shower every other day or every four days.”
She said the bathrooms for detainees were “backed up” regularly due to the sheer number of people needing to use them.
“Not everybody is a criminal,” Lindsey said of the detainees. The Miami Herald previously reported that roughly 250 of the 700 detainees at the facility in July did not have a criminal record, despite President Donald Trump calling the facility a place to keep “deranged psychopaths.”
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“These people are still human,” she said. “They pulled them from their livelihood. They’re scared. They don’t speak our language.”
Conditions were little better for the employees at the facility. “We had to use the porta-johns. We didn’t have hot water half the time. Our bathrooms were backed up,” Lindsey said.
Lindsey worked at the facility for around a week before catching COVID and taking time to isolate. She was then fired for “altering medical paperwork submitted to the company” — an accusation she denies.
“I was fired. And yeah, I’m pissed off,” she said. “But more so than ever, like, they’re doing wrong.”
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