At New US Detention Centres, Women Forced To Use Toilets In Front Of Men

According to a report titled, 'You Feel Like Your Life is Over': Abusive Practices at Three Florida Immigration Detention Centres Since January 2025, undocumented migrants were being exposed to degrading treatment at several US immigration facilities. The report published conditions at three overcrowded south Florida facilities.

It claimed migrants were in shackles with their hands tied behind their backs and made to kneel and eat food from Styrofoam plates "like dogs". Dozens of men had been packed in cells for hours and denied lunch till 7pm. They remained in shackles with food in chairs in front of them. "We had to eat like animals," one detainee named Pedro said. This incident took place at a Miami immigration jail.

At the Krome North service processing center in west Miami, female detainees were forced to use toilets in full view of male detainees. Women were denied access to gender-appropriate medical care, showers or adequate food.

The jail was full far beyond capacity, and to deal with that, detainees were held in a bus at a parking lot for more than 24 hours. Men and women were cramped together and unshackled only when they had to use the single toilet. Soon after, the toilet became clogged.

"The bus became disgusting. 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," one man said.

"Because of this, the whole bus smelled strongly of feces."

After they were transferred to a facility, the group spent up to 12 days crammed in a cold room with no bedding or warm clothes, and they had to sleep on the cold concrete floor. The room was called la hielera - or the ice box.

The detainees suffered delays in treatment for injuries, medical or psychological care. At the third facility, the Broward transitional center in Pompano Beach, a 44-year-old Haitian woman, Marie Ange Blaise, died in April because of lack of necessary care.

Rosa, one of the detainees, said she heard screams when she saw Blaise in a kneeling position. She thought Blaise was having a "seizure".

"We started yelling for help, but the guards ignored us. Finally, one officer approached slowly, looked at her without intervening, and then walked away. After that, it took eight minutes for the medical provider to arrive, and then another 15 or 20 before the rescue team came. By then, she was not moving," Rosa was quoted as saying in the report.

The detainees said the "Alligator Alcatraz" jail in the Everglades was quickly built to hold up 5,000 undocumented migrants because the facilities were severely overcrowded.