Detainees at the controversial immigration facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz” have reportedly been on a hunger strike for more than 10 days, protesting conditions at the center.
However, a senior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official rejected the reports, telling Newsweek in an email on Sunday morning: “FALSE. There is no hunger strike at Alligator Alcatraz. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last, that the media repeats unsubstantiated, inaccurate allegations about illegal alien detention facilities.”
Newsweek has reached out to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ office for comment via email on Saturday.
Why It Matters
There have been allegations of medical neglect, verbal abuse, and poor conditions inside the Everglades immigration facility, and human rights advocates have repeatedly raised concerns about the center. Alligator Alcatraz was quickly created and holds an estimated 1,000 beds. The bunkbeds are stacked together in wire-fenced cages.
The remote facility is expected to cost Florida about $450 million annually to operate.
The center is part of the Trump administration’s effort to crackdown on illegal immigration. President Donald Trump has vowed to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history, an initiative that has seen an intensification of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and arrests across the country, including people with valid visas and documentation.
What To Know
Several detainees at the relatively new facility are refusing food as part of a hunger strike to protest conditions inside the center, with reports noting the strike has entered its 11th day. Pedro Lorenzo Concepcion, one of the detainees, was hospitalized during the strike, and told El Pais in a call from inside the facility, “I feel weak, with a lot of heartburn.” He told the outlet that he has refused to eat since July 22.
He continued: “I don’t want food, I refuse any treatment. I didn’t even ask to be taken to the hospital, because I’m fighting for my family and all Cubans, and I belong where my people are, in prison, suffering the same hardship they are.”
His wife, Daimarys Hernández, has told the outlet and NBC News that she is afraid he may die in custody or be deported back to Cuba alone.
Lorenzo Concepcion, who NBC News identified as Pedro Hernández, came to the U.S. from Cuba nearly two decades ago, in 2006. He was detained on July 8 after showing up at an ICE appointment in Miramar, Florida.
A senior DHS official told Newsweek in an email statement that “there is no hunger strike at Alligator Alcatraz,” adding that “these false allegations about detention facilities vilify our brave ICE law enforcement who are already facing an 830% increase in assaults against them.”
The statement continued: “For the record: During hunger strikes, ICE continues to provide three meals a day, delivered to the detained alien’s room, and an adequate supply of drinking water or other beverages. Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE.”
So far this year, there have been 10 confirmed deaths in ICE detention, per the agency.
“These deaths are clearly attributable to the Trump administration’s increased and aggressive detention policies, and I have no doubt that when more complete investigations take place, it will likely provide information that these deaths were likely preventable,” Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) National Prison Project, told Newsweek in July.
Democratic leaders and human rights activists have called out the center over reported conditions. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has repeatedly defended the center and has promoted the facility as a model for other states as a way to increase ICE detention capacity.
“We need to double our capacity in detention beds because we need to facilitate getting people out of this country as fast as possible,” Noem said in July during a press conference. ICE is struggling with limited capacity and resources to fulfill its mission of millions of deportations.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
What People Are Saying
Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst and consultant at the Florida Immigration Coalition, wrote in an X post Saturday: “People detained at Alligator Alcatraz have had to remove fecal matter from the toilets with their bare hands because the toilets lose pressure due to lack of water. That’s the sort of depraved conditions that drove those in detention there to ten days of hunger strike so far.”
Derrick Evans, former member of the West Virginia House and pardoned January 6, 2021, Capitol riot participant, wrote in an X post: “I’m glad the illegals at Alligator Alcatraz are on a hunger strike. Just saves the tax payers money by not having to feed them. I have no sympathy for any of them.”
Representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Florida Democrat, wrote in an X post about the center on Saturday: “438 veterans in Florida are taking a stand against the unconstitutional and illegal use of our military for immigration enforcement. I stand with them. We should be defending our nation, not using Marines to cage people.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in a July 25 X post: “We stood up Alligator Alcatraz in just eight days as a centralized facility for deportation staging. The facility has a two-mile runway that allows federal military aircraft to transport illegal aliens out of the country, right on site. These deportation flights operated by DHS are underway, and we will support efforts to increase cadence of the flights so that the number of illegal aliens deported keeps increasing.”
What Happens Next?
It remains unclear when the hunger strike will end. In late July, deportation flights from the facility began and are expected to continue.
Civil rights groups, including the ACLU, have filed lawsuits alleging “inhuman conditions” and lack of legal counsel at the center.
Update 8/3/25, 1:42 p.m. ET: This article has been updated to include comment from a senior DHS official.
