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Detainees at Florida’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail said guards were denying them food and fresh water on Thursday until they signed documents presented to them in English that they did not understand.
In an audio recording of a telephone call to an immigration advocacy group heard by the Guardian, more than half a dozen detainees alleged that the water given to them over the last three days was “rotten” and containing mosquito larvae, in an apparent attempt to pressure them to sign.
During the call, all the detainees identified themselves by name and the section and cage number they are being held in. The Guardian is withholding those details because of the men’s stated fear of reprisals.
“They took all the water, and they don’t want to give us water,” one detainee said in the call to a representative of the Workers Circle, an advocacy group that has acted as a liaison between detainees and their families.
“They haven’t given us lunch, and they are mistreating us here. Right now, at this very moment, half past one in the afternoon, we haven’t had lunch here in Alcatraz, and they wanted to make us sign a paper in English that we don’t know what that paper says.
“They’ve taken reprisals with us for not taking that paper, not signing that paper. They took away the water and medicine to people who need medication. Today the medicine came very late, but here we have people here who are diabetic, one here with high blood pressure.”
The detainee said he and others had been complaining for several days about the quality of the water they had been given, and on Thursday morning chants of “agua, agua” broke out when it was withheld altogether.
“The water has pests, the water has a bad taste, [you] open the water tubs and they have mosquito larvae,” he said.
Another detainee said the water was “stinky and rotten”, and that he saw mosquitoes emerging from a substance contained within it.
He said nobody in his cell had yet signed any document.
Reports last month said “Alligator Alcatraz”, operated by the state of Florida as an immigration jail on behalf of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, would wind down operations in June, leading to its eventual closure.
In its almost one year of operation, the tented facility, built on a little-used training airport deep in the Florida Everglades, has developed a reputation for the brutal treatment of undocumented detainees kept in metal cages, and a succession of alleged human and civil rights abuses.
Among the claims are a denial of access to immigration lawyers, frequent and sudden movement of detainees to other detention facilities, and pressure to consent to agree to deportation without legal representation.
Noelle Damico, director of social justice for the Workers Circle, said Thursday’s developments appeared to be a ramping up of that pressure to force detainees to agree to leave.
“They’re being asked by guards to sign documents that they cannot fully see, nor do they understand,” she said. “This has been going on for several days, and right now they’ve stopped giving them water.
“The water in the past three days has been unusually disgusting with mosquito larvae, dirt in it, and tasting absolutely rotten. So that predates today, now they’ve removed the water.
“They were fed breakfast this morning, but lunch was withheld. This is an outrageous violation of basic human rights under international and national law.”
The Guardian has contacted the Florida department of emergency management, which oversees the operation of the facility using private guards, for a response.
In a statement on 29 May, following a previous allegation that a detainee with diabetes was denied medication, Stephanie Hartman, the department’s director of communications, said: “Medical facilities and staff, including a pharmacy, are available 24/7 to detainees.”
The department has also previously denied any mistreatment or abuse of detainees.
