Detainees at Florida's now-closed "Alligator Alcatraz" immigration detention camp were held in phone booth–sized cages as punishment, a Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) report released Monday found.
In addition to finding numerous other violations of humane detention standards, the DHS OIG audit offers a rare account of conditions inside the secretive facility, and it partially confirms accounts by former detainees, published last year by Amnesty International and several media outlets, that they were punished by being put in "the box," a small metal cage.
