Guards inside Florida’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention facility are reportedly wearing patches featuring the Grim Reaper and the words “You can’t hide.”
A former guard at the facility, which sits on an old airstrip in a remote patch of the Everglades, reportedly made the patches and distributed them to other staff members.
“What I saw was ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ a skeleton dressed in black holding a hatchet and a crocodile underneath,” former detainee Lewis Ortigoza told the Miami Herald of the patch. “It looked like something demonic.”
“I always felt haunted by it, but I never said anything because I was so afraid,” he added.
The patch first came to light when a guard, who had been discharged from Critical Response Strategies, a government contracting firm that provides staffing at Alligator Alcatraz, reportedly handed it to a protester outside the facility earlier this month.
A spokesperson affiliated with the company told the paper that the guard is named Steven Martinez, and that the patch is not an authorized part of the uniform. The spokesperson added that Martinez and another staffer had been demobilized following an altercation between the two.
The Independent has contacted the company for further information, as well as Florida’s law enforcement agency, which oversees the site. The Independent was unable to locate Martinez for comment.
Florida officials hastily built the detention center last summer, and it has faced a string of complaints, legal challenges, and political difficulties since.
The facility, built within the sensitive habitat of the Big Cypress National Preserve, has been accused of housing people without criminal records and punishing detainees seeking legal assistance by disconnecting their calls.
Environmental groups and the local Miccosukee Tribe also sued to block the expansion of the facility, arguing it was violating environmental laws.
Inmates allege they’ve also faced disease outbreaks and poor sanitary conditions inside the facility, which the federal government has denied.
In August, a federal court ordered the state to shut the facility down, though that order was overturned on appeal and the case remains ongoing.
When Alligator Alcatraz was unveiled, Florida officials framed it as a joint state-federal endeavor, with the state shouldering initial costs and expecting federal reimbursement.
The state planned to commit roughly $1.5 billion in funds to building and operating the facilities, which are designed to house up to 3,000 people.
The federal government has only paid the state about $90 million out of the $403 million it has spent so far on detention facilities, a review by the Orlando Sentinel found.
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