Hundreds of detainees at the newly opened detention facility in the Florida everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by the White House, have no criminal records in the United States, according to a new report from the Miami Herald. A list of over 700 detainees was reviewed by the south Florida paper, from which they determined that 250 of them had no convictions or pending charges in the United States.
A third of the detainees have been convicted of offenses ranging from attempted murder to traffic violations, and some have been convicted of illegal re-entry into the country. They also found that hundreds are facing charges, although the records do not disclose their nature. The ages of detainees range from 18 to 73.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the Herald that many of the non-criminal detainees were actually “terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more,” and that they merely lacked charges for their criminal activities in the United States. McLaughlin added that “70% of ICE arrests have been of criminal illegal aliens with convictions or pending charges.”
The Herald’s report is the latest to challenge President Trump’s oft-repeated claims that his administration is targeting menaces to society, seeking to deport “criminals, killers, traffickers and child predators,” as he said in his speech to a joint session of Congress in March. On Saturday, the Associated Press published an analysis of ICE’s arrest statistics showing that 71.7% of the 57,861 people the agency had detained, or 41,495 detainees, had no criminal convictions.
The data also showed that 84% of detainees across the country were classified as having “no threat level”, meaning they have no criminal record. Seven percent were classified as a level 1 threat, according to the agency’s own 1-to-3 grading system, 1 being the greatest threat.
On Saturday, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz toured the detention facility that was recently constructed in the Florida Everglades, calling the conditions “appalling,” adding that “the pictures that you’ve seen don’t do it justice.” Wasserman described detention areas with “wall-to-wall” cages, with 32 detainees being held in each. She also decried the sanitary conditions, as toilets and sinks were combined into one unit, while showers only had small walls and offered “no privacy at all. She also expressed concern about whether detainees were getting enough to eat, saying “we’re talking about fully grown men being fed very small portions.” Local media have also reported detainees’ concerns over access to water.
The “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility, which Wasserman Schultz called an “internment camp,” was meant to be a temporary structure, though there has been no timeline offered by the White House on how long it will remain in use
