The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General found that 79 detainees were placed in small metal enclosures between July 17, 2025, and Jan. 18, 2026, sometimes for nearly two hours.
The spaces measured roughly 16 to 18 square feet, depending on the enclosure, according to reporting by the Associated Press, NBC News, and ABC News on the inspector general’s findings.
The facility, officially known as the Florida Soft-Sided Facility but widely called “Alligator Alcatraz,” operated at a remote airfield in the Everglades from July 2025 until June 2026.
A Haitian man previously held at the same facility testified in federal court earlier this year that he had sought asylum, feared being returned to Haiti, and was pressured to sign documents he did not understand before ultimately being deported there, according to the Associated Press.
The new federal report does not identify the nationalities of the 79 people placed in the small enclosures. CTN therefore could not determine how many, if any, of those 79 detainees were Haitian.
DHS inspectors made an unannounced visit to the Everglades facility in January.
They found problems extending far beyond the small enclosures, including inadequate living space, limited access to clean drinking water, sanitation problems, insects in shower areas, and shortcomings involving medical care, food service, and recreation, according to ABC News and AP.
The inspector general was especially critical of what staff called “calming areas.”
“The use of such restrictive spaces is highly unconventional,” the inspector general wrote in the report, according to the Associated Press.
ABC News reported that the watchdog concluded the practice presented “significant risks” to detainees’ health and safety.
Staff told investigators that detainees could use the enclosures to be alone, calm themselves and regulate their emotions. A notice reportedly said detainees could leave at any time.
But investigators found at least one case in which a detainee was placed inside for 26 minutes after failing to comply with an order, raising the possibility that the enclosure was being used for discipline rather than voluntarily.
The inspector general said such confinement was unprecedented among immigration detention facilities its office had inspected.
Earlier allegations were even more severe
Months before the federal inspection report became public, former detainees and human-rights organizations had described much harsher treatment.
In December 2025, Amnesty International published findings from a research mission to South Florida alleging that detainees were sometimes placed in what they called “the box,” a cage-like structure where people said they were restrained and exposed to the elements. Amnesty concluded that some treatment at the facility amounted to torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
The federal inspector general’s report is important because it independently confirms that small metal enclosures were, in fact, being used.
However, the two findings should not be treated as identical.
Amnesty described an approximately 2-by-2-foot structure and allegations involving shackling and prolonged exposure. The inspector general documented enclosures of roughly 4 feet by 4 feet and did not adopt Amnesty International’s conclusion that the practice constituted torture.
The federal watchdog instead found that the enclosures did not conform to standards for humane treatment and documented at least one case that appeared disciplinary.
The experience of one Haitian former detainee offers another window into the consequences of detention at the Everglades facility.
During a January 2026 federal court hearing over access to attorneys, two former detainees — one deported to Colombia and the other to Haiti — testified remotely about difficulties obtaining legal assistance.
According to the Associated Press, the Haitian man said he had applied for asylum in the United States and feared returning to Haiti. He testified that detention officials gave him documents he did not understand that turned out to involve his departure from the United States.
“I had to sign the documents,” the man testified, according to AP.
He also said he had been unable to speak with an attorney first.
The man testified that he later signed another set of documents after being told they could result in his removal to Mexico, because he was afraid of Haiti. He was ultimately deported to Haiti anyway, AP reported.
State officials disputed allegations that detainees were being denied legal access, while federal officials denied that detainees’ constitutional rights had been violated. A contractor responsible for attorney communications testified that lawyers had been meeting with detainees and that procedures had been established to facilitate attorney access.
The inspector general’s findings also expose a dispute over who was responsible for conditions at the facility.
Florida built and operated the center, while federal immigration authorities sent detainees there as part of the Trump administration’s broader immigration enforcement campaign.
DHS argued in its response to investigators that Florida retained authority over the facility’s day-to-day operations and that DHS did not have a contract with the state to manage the detention space, according to ABC News.
The inspector general, however, said questions about ICE oversight remain significant even though the facility is now closed.
That disagreement matters because federal standards ordinarily govern immigration detention. Investigators said the Everglades facility lacked clearly established correctional standards and failed to comply with several standards normally applied to immigration detention.
The detention center also became controversial because of its cost.
The New York Times reported that the facility cost Florida more than $1 million per day to operate, including expenses associated with bringing in water and removing wastewater. Federal authorities later agreed to reimburse hundreds of millions of dollars associated with Florida’s immigration detention operations, although not all of that money had been paid when the Times reported on the issue.
Reuters reported in May that Florida planned to shut down the facility after federal officials concluded it had become too expensive to operate. Detainees were transferred elsewhere by June.
The center had processed thousands of detained immigrants during its operation. An NBC6 analysis of ICE records found that more than 6,700 men had been housed there by December 2025, and only about 31% had final removal orders at the time Florida officials publicly claimed everyone there was already subject to deportation.
For Haitians in the United States, the report arrives during a far more consequential period than when the Everglades facility first opened.
Temporary Protected Status protections for Haiti were terminated this summer following months of litigation that reached the U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts. The legal timeline changed repeatedly as courts issued new orders, but federal authorities ultimately resumed treating Haitian TPS protections as terminated.
At the same time, deportation flights to Haiti have accelerated.
Last week, the United States deported 101 people to Haiti, according to the Associated Press. AP reported that it was the third consecutive week in which a U.S. deportation flight arrived in Haiti, compared with a previously less frequent schedule. More than 200 people had already been returned on two flights in late August.
Those removals are occurring while Haiti remains engulfed in an extraordinary security and humanitarian crisis. U.N. figures cited by AP showed nearly 1.5 million people displaced and more than 3,000 killed during the first half of 2026.
Reuters separately reported that nearly 200,000 people had been forcibly returned to Haiti from various countries during the first eight months of 2026, amid expanding gang violence and severe humanitarian pressures.
A closed facility, but unanswered questions
“Alligator Alcatraz” is no longer holding detainees, but the inspector general’s findings leave broader questions about how immigrants are being treated as federal detention expands nationwide.
Those questions are particularly urgent for Haitian immigrants who may now face detention after the termination of TPS, including people who have asylum cases, pending immigration applications or other claims that could affect whether they can legally be removed.
The federal watchdog did not conclude that every detainee at the Florida facility was mistreated, nor did it establish that every allegation made by advocacy organizations was accurate.
But its findings provide government confirmation of several core concerns: detainees were kept in severely restricted spaces, living conditions fell below federal standards, and the division of responsibility between Florida and federal immigration authorities was poorly defined.
https://ctninfo.com/dhs-watchdog-fin…eportations-rise/
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