An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Miramar, Florida, is supposed to be where immigrants go for regular appointments with federal authorities. However, family members of detainees, immigrant legal aid groups, and Democratic lawmakers say the South Florida facility has become a dangerously overcrowded detention center in the past few months, with people languishing for days in what are meant to be temporary holding cells.
A South Florida resident who asked to only be identified by her first name, Marlene, says her sister Yajaira, a 37-year-old mother of two, spent five days last month detained at the Miramar facility before being transferred to another detention center across the country.
