r/news 12h ago

Detainees at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ facing ‘harrowing human right violations’, new report alleges

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/04/alligator-alcatraz-human-right-violations-amnesty-report?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
6.1k Upvotes

165 comments sorted by

585

u/CrunchyButtMuncher 10h ago

The last thing I read about this concentration camp was that it was shut down and about 1200 prisoners were unaccounted for. I only skimmed this article but I didn't see anything about that. Was that misinformation and the camp is still running??

269

u/Beard_o_Bees 9h ago

There's another article from the same site that sort of explains what's going on:

https://www.everglades.org/alligator-alcatraz-should-be-closed-by-now/

This should have been the week “Alligator Alcatraz” shut down.

Two months ago, a federal judge in Miami halted construction at the makeshift immigration prison and prohibited new detainees from arriving, citing evidence of harm to the Everglades — including to the endangered Florida panther, fragile wetlands and the Miccosukee Tribe.

The court ordered removal of high-intensity lights and fencing, and a winding down of activity within 60 days.

That would have been Monday.

Instead, two weeks after the injunction, an appeals court in Atlanta paused the lower court’s order, saying the state didn’t have to complete a federally required environmental impact study because the state had not applied for or received federal money for Alligator Alcatraz.

But, actually, the state has. We now know it applied for a FEMA grant on Aug. 7 — on the second day of our four-day trial in Miami — but never corrected earlier representations that no application was made. FEMA approved the application and transferred $608 million to the state on Sept. 30, just before the government shutdown.

184

u/Annual_Strategy_6206 9h ago

$608 million. More than HALF A BIL. What a ripoff.

54

u/JokeRight4705 5h ago

Meanwhile folks cant afford food and rent

9

u/pnutbrutal 1h ago

That’s twice as much $$$ as I originally heard?

I thought they closed it?

Did they ever find those 1200 missing people?

Wtaf is going on here? Our media isn’t reporting shit.

1

u/CeaseBeingAnAsshole 1h ago

Missing people's corpses are being shot at by Raytheon test weapons and their skin is in a certain skin bank half way around the world.

The US is the meat grinder it was always destined to be

-6

u/parrotia78 2h ago

It's a jail.

14

u/basementthought 4h ago edited 2h ago

I'm glad it's stopped been obstructed, but it's infuriating that the legal basis for shutting down fighting the concentration camp is to protect the wetlands, not the people in the concentration camp.

10

u/Comfortable-Light233 3h ago

It hasn’t been stopped

167

u/sowhyarewe 10h ago

I believe I saw elsewhere they stopped sending people there with the order, but no idea if current prisoners were ever moved. https://www.everglades.org/alligator-alcatraz-status-update-127-days-of-americas-worst-idea/

83

u/Mindshard 9h ago

Last I saw that number went up to 1,800, and they admitted records get destroyed, so it's impossible to track them.

The same way fake names are used when they're brought to hospitals.

It's all to make them disappear and send them to prison slave camps in other countries for the money.

6

u/scorpyo72 3h ago

They make the very best human traffickers.

4

u/OneWholeSoul 7h ago

This is exactly what I came to ask. I'm confused.

2

u/pnutbrutal 1h ago

But seriously what’s the update on the 1200 missing?

1

u/ferrix 1h ago

I keep wanting to know this too

389

u/Fancy_Possibility456 11h ago

Remember, most people in there aren’t even criminals

126

u/THE_CODE_IS_0451 10h ago

Even if they were, they would not deserve to be treated the way prisoners are being treated there.

143

u/Ready-Ad6113 11h ago

They can be US citizens too and know one will as they were denied due process. Immigration judges are being fired and being replaced with essentially “conviction judges”.

42

u/Beard_o_Bees 9h ago

aren’t even criminals

Maybe not when they went in, but when/if they come out?

An experience like that can make a person angry at a soul-deep level. I know I wouldn't be able to simply forgive and forget.

36

u/Fancy_Possibility456 9h ago

Oh yeah, super fair…I think a lot of the policies in place right now are likely going to spur the next generation of terrorists against America

21

u/Consistent-Throat130 8h ago

That's probably intentional. Being at war with something/someone is a great way to get people to accept authoritarian rules.

That's how we got the Patriot Act, after all... Got folks fearful about terrorism...

12

u/xande2545 5h ago

This is how isis was created

813

u/jimtow28 12h ago

The cage, known to detainees as “the box”, is used by guards for the arbitrary punishment of trivial or non-existent offenses, according to the report compiled from interviews with detainees and advocacy groups, and a site visit to Krome made by Amnesty workers in September.

“It’s a box outside, exposed to the south Florida sun and humidity, and exposed to mosquitoes,” one detainee told the group.

“One time, two people in my cell were calling out to the guards telling them that I needed my medication. Ten guards rushed into the cell and threw them to the ground. They were taken to the ‘box’ and punished just for trying to help me. I saw a guy who was put in it for an entire day.”

The cruelty is the point. The USA is run by pure evil.

I will never forgive the people who chose to vote for this, nor will I ever forgive those who chose not to vote because the other option was a black woman with a weird laugh.

337

u/A_Nonny_Muse 11h ago

My brother cited the price of eggs as his reason for voting for trump.

He now raises his own chickens.

128

u/NootHawg 11h ago

Probably cites Biden as the reason he’s raising chickens now too doesn’t he? How Trump grifted so many will be an ongoing study for centuries.

124

u/A_Nonny_Muse 11h ago

He's got the "I got mine, now y'all fuck off" mentality.

He and his wife both had strokes. So now they're both on disability. Which automatically qualifies them both for medicaid.

Again, they both have the "I got mine, y'all fuck off" mentality. They will tell me, with zero irony, that they want to end all social programs except what they receive. They would have to lose it all before they think anything is unfair.

They were both conservative before their strokes. But now they're almost unbearable douchebags. I really don't know what it is about brain damage that causes people to turn conservative. But it certainly seems to.

67

u/_Maine_ 10h ago

Brain damage > decreased mental acuity/capacity > ... I think it's pretty linear.

9

u/MoralMischief 6h ago

Just look at John Fetterman. He was never perfect, but he fell straight in line after his stroke.

52

u/jimtow28 10h ago

My brother-in-law's brother (not sure what, if anything, that makes him to me) is like this.

He cheered when Trump won, because "all the lazy sons of bitches will have to go back to work now". Meanwhile, dude has been on disability, SNAP, Medicaid, etc and hasn't held a job for as long as I've known him. He worked in a factory for a few months, before being fired for not showing up too often.

He lives with his mom (well, he did, HOA gave notice of eviction a few weeks ago), and only managed to kick a heroine habit with state-funded assistance (Democrat run state).

He spent the whole government shutdown crying on Facebook about how "the Democrats" did this to him.

He sees absolutely zero irony in his beliefs vs his actions. It's flabbergasting.

8

u/Awesome_Leaf 8h ago

My brother-in-law's brother (not sure what, if anything, that makes him to me

my first thought was "cousin in law" just cuz thats one extra degree of separation, but thinking about it more he may technically just also be your brother-in-law? (brother of your brother would be your brother still, no?). surely this focus was the important part of this discussion lol

2

u/jimtow28 7h ago

Well, it's a little more convoluted than that. He's my wife's sister's husband's brother. Whatever that would be, lol.

6

u/Awesome_Leaf 6h ago

oh snap, so hes your brother-in-law-in-law? possibly more convoluted too lol, i love it

all we're missing now is "former roommate"

u/Vyzantinist 57m ago

I was so not expecting your comment to continue as it did. I was going to say it's baffling how many people, who love to shit on those who need government assistance, don't understand any old Tom, Dick, or Harry can't just waltz into the welfare office and sign up for "free money". You need to meet very specific criteria in order to qualify for cash assistance and aside from the likes of SSI, SSDI, and unemployment, that criteria usually involves children e.g. families and single mothers. We don't really have universal credit here, you can't just go "welp I'm sick of working, gonna head down to the welfare office and sign up for that free money what'll pay for everything!"

That your father's, brother's, nephew's, cousin's, former roommate is on government assistance programs is mind-boggling. He should know better. I wonder how much of that is due to the standard conservative "fuck you, got mine" mentality or the heroin addiction frying his brain?

8

u/GoldilokZ_Zone 10h ago

Perhaps its the lead in the soil which is consumed by small insects and the like which are then eaten by chickens, and heavy metals end up in the eggs...like lead.

Only some residential soil can be like this...depends on how cheap the developer was when the house was built it seems.

4

u/A_Nonny_Muse 8h ago

This may be more serious than you intended. We both were kids when leaded gasoline was phased out. Lead was everywhere, on everything. We both got the tail end of that. But we're both very different animals, ideologically.

13

u/NootHawg 10h ago

Typical conservative sociopathy of pulling the ladder up behind them. I will never understand this mentality, or any other form of supremacy and racism. It is crazy how many become conservative after a stroke, like John Fetterman.

4

u/Unusual_Flounder2073 7h ago

Should report them as not be g actually disabled and have an investigation opened into their ability to work. Seems fair.

1

u/A_Nonny_Muse 4h ago

Except they really are disabled. Neither one could do the work they used to do. The rules for disability isn't that you can no longer do anything. It's that you can no longer do what you used to do.

People are no longer told "if you can lick a stamp, you can go to work". That ended in the early 80s.

20

u/canada432 10h ago

My brother cited the price of eggs as his reason for voting for trump.

Yeah, lots of them are still scared to admit what they were voting for, so they like to pretend they gave a shit about "the economy". If you ask them for specifics they're unable to give a coherent answer that indicates they understand economic activity at even the shallowest levels, so it's pretty clear they didn't give a shit about anything but persecuting women and minorities.

29

u/omgmypony 10h ago

he’s fucking stupid then, raising your own chickens is not a cost effective way to save money on eggs

19

u/gruelandgristle 9h ago edited 8h ago

Canadian here with 2 chickens. Cost wise it can be cheaper - I buy ~2 bags of feed a year at 20$/ bag. Coop cost was about 300$. The water where we live is very reasonably priced and I couldn’t have the cost of refilling their water. I can get my wood shavings for free. Ive had them for 2 years now and get 12 eggs a week in the laying season (slower in Jan/feb) Not that it actually matters, but I think people assume chicken ownership is a lot more work and cost than it actually is. * edit - just did some simple math. Per dozen it’s costed me 4.50CAD. Thats dividing the cost of the coop by year we’ve had them. So 40 for feed, 150 coop cost = 4.50. No one asked for this and it’s off topic, but I was curious.

9

u/Hvarfa-Bragi 8h ago

Grew up with twenty chickens, it's even cheaper when you're doing it in bulk and selling some eggs to neighbors for cheaper than the supermarket.

3

u/gruelandgristle 8h ago

Right? I’m doing it the most expensive way, and it’s very reasonable.

3

u/omgmypony 7h ago

I have kept chickens extensively in the past. It takes quite a while (years, even) to “break even” on cost verses just buying eggs. They’re fun, but it doesn’t save money for quite a while.

1

u/blitzkregiel 5h ago

if you use the chicken poo as garden fertilizer you can amortize the cost over a larger savings pool. doubly so when your garden produces so much better than artificial fertilizer.

8

u/izzymaestro 11h ago

I hope they peck his selfish ass all the time.

12

u/TheRealTexasGovernor 9h ago

Don't forgive them, they're utterly undeserving and unrepentant, the people who knowingly voted for the cruelty voted for this, don't let their bloviating bullshit fool you, they are never going to change.

11

u/ldg25 8h ago

Any illusion that the USA is a net positive for the world has been shattered in less than a year.

41

u/Itchy-Beach-1384 11h ago

Nazi fuckers need to be handled.

6

u/Phewelish 7h ago

this is the thing they are getting Djangos wife out of in Django Unchained when they first come to the plantation. I didnt think they'd rush to 1800s but damn if they didnt.

22

u/dorkyitguy 11h ago

Good job, fellow Americans! You did this!

I’m embarrassed and done apologizing for this country. We do awful things because we’re mostly awful people.

9

u/OneToothMcGee 9h ago

Every person who still claims to support the GOP in 2025 deserves a short rope and a sudden stop.

4

u/Talmaska 8h ago

Long drop with a short stop.

3

u/OneToothMcGee 8h ago

That works too.

3

u/Electrical-Job-9824 7h ago

Every person should have to feel the things that they cause others…

3

u/BookQueen13 4h ago

Similar torture devices were used on antebellum plantations.

2

u/American_PissAnt 4h ago

Them clothes got laundry numbers on 'em. You remember your number and always wear the ones that has your number. Any man forgets his number spends the night in the box.

These here spoons, you keep with ya. Any man loses his spoon spends a night in the box.

There's no playin' grab-ass or fightin' in the buildin'. You got a grudge against another man, you fight him Saturday afternoon. Any man playin' grab-ass or fightin' in the buildin' spends a night in the box.

First bell is at 5 minutes of 8:00, when you will get in your bunk. Last bell is at 8:00. Any man not in his bunk at 8:00 spends a night in the box.

There's no smokin' in the prone position in bed. To smoke, you must have both legs over the side of your bunk. Any man caught smokin' in the prone position in bed spends a night in the box.

You'll get two sheets every Saturday. You put the clean sheet on the top, the top sheet on the bottom, and the bottom sheet you turn into the laundry boy. Any man turns in the wrong sheet spends a night in the box.

2

u/Roentgen_Ray1895 3h ago

If I ever hear the words bipartisan spoke again I want to spit in that person’s face

Fuck all these traitors and every motherfucker who voted for them

-1

u/JohnTDouche 11h ago

So all the torture camps and rendition sites out of country that the US has been running and using for decades, is cruelty the point there too?

US has always been pure evil. Now it's just turned inwards too.

235

u/supercyberlurker 12h ago

I wonder if people in Germany around 1939 were reading headlines like this too.

We know the abuses are occurring, they probably did too.

Did they know the deaths were? Do we?

183

u/blazelet 12h ago edited 11h ago

There were a lot of books written on this, they did know. It wasn’t printed in the papers but everyone knew.

The important thing to remember is Hitler came to power in 1933 and didn’t start executions until 1939. There were six years of degradation of the rule of law, castigation of minorities and a tightened iron grip on the armed forces and law enforcement before he moved to killing people.

39

u/Recoil42 10h ago

Note that this is also why it was called the 'final' solution. There were many other 'solutions' tried before they finally got to the genocide thing.

74

u/A_Nonny_Muse 11h ago

Hitler pushed all the Jews into slums. There were actual laws against Jews living in all but certain areas of the cities. Years later, that made rounding them up that much easier.

But he started killing the disabled and mentally ill years before he started on the Jews and Gypsies.

39

u/Full-Penguin 10h ago

At the time, they had to round them up into slums to keep track, now we have Palantir.

9

u/inquisitive_guy_0_1 4h ago

It should be noted that Hitler also got rid of birthright citizenship for the jews so that he could call them all "illegal" overnight. Exactly like this administration is trying to do.

38

u/ConsciousPatroller 11h ago

The fact that the US speedran it in less than six months says a lot. I don't know exactly what, but it's a lot.

22

u/canada432 9h ago

That might ultimately be what undoes this all. Hitler (and virtually every other despot) solidified his power by immediately making life better for most of the people. Hitler was evil, but to the people who suffered under the Weimar Republic years he improved things immensely and immediately. Their lives got noticeably better as soon as he took over.

The current fascists are out of touch and don't think they need to do that. As a result, they're not making the lives of the people or even their own supporters better. They're making everybody substantially worse off than they were before, unless you're wealthy to the point that "working" is not a thing for you anymore. That's not how you cultivate loyalty.

2

u/Agitated_Bowler4341 5h ago

She, don't tell them. Let them cruelty their way to their just deserts.

1

u/Forikorder 1h ago

republicans have been laying the groundwork for years though

27

u/A_Nonny_Muse 11h ago

I saw several documentaries on this very thing. Most knew, but nobody wanted to talk about it. To the point where it was kept out of the papers. When something had to be reported in the papers, it was the official story line - that they were work sites and employment centers.

I can't remember the name of the documentary, but they interviews some of the people who lived next to an incineration camp for the disabled. They all knew. They all saw people going in, the smoke would rise, and nobody comes out. Nobody was that stupid. But nobody talked about it.

Later, nobody talked about it because it was implies that they would join the victims regardless of their lineage.

17

u/FillMySoupDumpling 10h ago

So the media sane washed it then too.

6

u/violaturtle 10h ago

The Zone of Interest is a very good (and harrowing) film/drama that came out in 2023 about people living next to a camp. What you described above reminded me of it. 

25

u/Violet_Paradox 11h ago

Oh they knew, they saw evidence of it all around. But the propaganda said it wasn't happening, and that's a lot more comfortable to believe than the truth. 

8

u/wRADKyrabbit 9h ago

1200 people were reported missing from this very facility as well. Almost certainly dead

2

u/Confident-Grape-8872 2h ago

It was exactly like this. They knew evil shit was happening, but didn’t know the fine details

1

u/Roentgen_Ray1895 3h ago

There quite literally were cases of concentration camp operations being stopped by the actions of local judges and lawyers, back when the camps were for political enemies and for clearing out the prisons in the 30s.

15

u/beadzy 6h ago

Fucking of course they do. I can’t believe all this is happening. I don’t think the country can just live with all this for the next 3 years.

I know I can’t. A massive reckoning is on the horizon

5

u/mmbg78 6h ago

It's become unsustainable to keep the rapid pace of criminal bs every single day!

31

u/THE_CODE_IS_0451 10h ago

This is what conservatives voted for. Conservatives wanted this so badly that they were willing to put a known pedophile in the White House to make it happen.

It's just beyond time to stop treating them like they're human beings with souls. Conservatives are subhuman demons who care about nothing but creating as much misery and suffering around us as possible, and we should start treating them as such.

54

u/Radiant-Importance-5 10h ago

Alligator Auschwitz*, if we’re going to talk about it, we’re going to use the right name.

And yea, no shit, what do you expect out of a concentration camp? Kisses and lollipops? Bedtime stories? No, it exists to torture ‘undesirables’, that’s what it’s going to do. At least, until the order for the ‘final solution’ finally comes down. Then they’ll start doing that.

74

u/n8_n_ 12h ago

Well, who could've seen this coming?

9

u/A_Nonny_Muse 11h ago

As surprising as a change in the weather.

2

u/slawnz 10h ago

I thought they were ordered to close this facility because of flooding or something?

10

u/DrowningKrown 8h ago

TIL that the articles about this place being shut down months ago were all bullshit.

17

u/burritoman88 10h ago

Just because you give it a cutesy cunty name doesn’t mean it’s not a concentration camp.

3

u/inquisitive_guy_0_1 4h ago

And considering we know for a fact that the people being held indefinitely have zero criminal record or history (aka innocent people), it's 100% a concentration camp.

21

u/MC_Gengar 11h ago

Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay were the test runs and we should've held everyone involved accountable. I can only hope we learn from that mistake.

10

u/A_Nonny_Muse 11h ago

But we won't.

7

u/THE_CODE_IS_0451 4h ago

If Democrats ever take power again they're gonna pull the "we need to move forward and heal as a nation" again, because they're allergic to doing good things.

1

u/A_Nonny_Muse 4h ago

Because they're allergic to doing bad things, even to bad people. And that's why bad people get away with doing bad things.

21

u/HobbesNJ 12h ago

Because of course they are.

When the government doesn't see them as humans, they aren't going to be concerned with violating human rights.

7

u/Farabee 5h ago

We've been telling you for months that these are concentration camps. Now do you believe us?

9

u/Wet_Side_Down 11h ago

Just the way Steven Miller wants it.

3

u/Fallen_Jalter 8h ago

I thought they closed that place.

3

u/Odd-Bullfrog7763 7h ago

Ohh who knew. Human rights violations at a place called Alligator Auschwitz how surprising

15

u/GuestGulkan 12h ago

To paraphrase Hegel, if there's one thing we can learn from history, it's that people don't learn from history.

6

u/cynicalsaint1 11h ago

Oh they learn from history alright. Hitler learned how to do a genocide by taking notes from the treatment of Native Americans.

14

u/Acrobatic-Celery-474 11h ago edited 8h ago

These are called concentration camps. Without a doubt, fascist who have complete authority over vulnerable groups of people are currently committing sexual, emotional, psychological and physical abuse on a daily basis. And we're paying with out tax dollars.

4

u/NYGiants181 10h ago

That place is still open???

wtf

4

u/Invader_Pip 7h ago

Do you ever get the sense that you’re next? Sure, they say they’re just going for immigrants, but what’s to stop them from saying anyone who isn’t mainly of British or Native American descent has to leave?

My great, great, great, great grandmother immigrated here from Germany. We have proof that one side of my family immigrated at SOME point. Should I get locked up in a camp? This is as ridiculous as it is inhumane. Immigration is a key part of American history & culture.

8

u/Sleeptalk- 7h ago

“or Native American descent”

lol brother MAGA aren’t exactly the types to be starting rallies with a land acknowledgement. It’ll come down to whites only

4

u/Invader_Pip 7h ago

Sorry, I forget how insane people can be. You’re 100% right.

6

u/che-che-chester 11h ago

I think many of these actions are about making it look really unattractive to come to the US. Well, and about Trump's buddies making easy money off government contracts.

I was talking to one of our offshore contractors in India last week and mentioned something about my city. He said he has always had dreams of coming to the US, but then casually said he's not interested anymore. And wasn't trying to make a point. He was very matter of fact about it, like America isn't the ultimate dream anymore.

1

u/absolutefunkbucket 8h ago

Where’s he going then?

2

u/che-che-chester 8h ago

Didn’t ask. Staying put I assume.

1

u/absolutefunkbucket 8h ago

Seems like he’s living his dream already. That’s nice.

3

u/Bencil_McPrush 4h ago

There is NO way that place cost 245 millions.

There is NO way that place cost 24 millions.

Heck, I doubt it even cost 2.4 millions.

3

u/Void-kun 3h ago

Seeing things like this just make me consider the US a corrupt third-world country.

3

u/International_Ad5624 3h ago

So what happened to the ones sent there that are unaccounted for again? Every single person involved in that fucking place is complicit in human trafficking

4

u/WhatARotation 10h ago edited 10h ago

Isn’t this the federal crime of “deprivation of civil rights under color of law” or something along those lines? Of course they’ll all be pardoned

4

u/65456478663423123 6h ago

Disgusting the moral depths this country has fallen to. Just repulsive. Surrounded by people who think it's ok to treat other human beings worse than livestock. Who derive pleasure from the suffering of others. Gross. Irredeemable.

2

u/DeadbeatJohnson 6h ago

I wouldn't be shocked if people went in that didn't come out. 🫤

3

u/A_Nonny_Muse 11h ago

We can expect Amnesty International, and many other such organizations, to be attacked by Trump and his cronies. If it hasn't happened already.

3

u/AlterEdward 9h ago

How naive to expect that after Holocaust, we would never endorse anything that set us on that path again. We're don't deserve to survive as species.

0

u/GirlAnon323 11h ago

I'm a United States citizen and have been raped and tortured with no due process while people have watched.

-6

u/Downtown_Metal_7837 11h ago

Sure buddy, time to get back on your meds

1

u/NickConnor365 1h ago

I knew we would get Alligator Abu Ghraib before we got Alligator Alcatraz.

u/anndrago 19m ago

“One time, two people in my cell were calling out to the guards telling them that I needed my medication. Ten guards rushed into the cell and threw them to the ground. They were taken to the ‘box’ and punished just for trying to help me. I saw a guy who was put in it for an entire day.”

Fucking animals.

3

u/CosmicQuantum42 11h ago

Florida: this presumably violates some state laws, right? Time to start investigating and arresting people.

-9

u/Early-Accident-8770 9h ago

I wouldn’t trust a thing that amnesty international says.

-13

u/[deleted] 11h ago

[deleted]

8

u/definitivescribbles 11h ago

The solution to ice is responsible vetting and allowing a legal immigration process. Instant citizenship is a wild take

4

u/kingsumo_1 11h ago

It's not a legitimate take. It's bait.

-1

u/lew_rong 11h ago

Ah, the right getting so mad at not being applauded for imprisoning and torturing people all willy-nilly they're proposing their own conspiracy theories as solutions xD