The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) own Office of Inspector General (OIG), an office that seeks to provide independent oversight and accountability within the department, issued a damning report last week about the conditions of confinement at Florida’s soft-sided immigration detention facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
The report described the troubling conditions OIG found during its unannounced inspection of the facility in January 2026 and made recommendations to ameliorate the issues OIG observed. Even though Alligator Alcatraz closed in June 2026, some of the issues noted in the OIG report are common among detention facilities that hold people in immigration custody.
OIG’s report provided gruesome details about the conditions that people detained at this facility experienced. Detained individuals were allowed to shower only three times a week, and the showers were infested with bugs. People complained of a lack of clean drinking water in part because the facility gave them only one plastic drinking cup and nowhere to properly clean or store them. OIG also reported that the overcrowding at the facility was problematic, noting that it provided less than half of the living space required by federal detention standards.
In perhaps one of the most shocking findings, the OIG inspection found that facility staff held individuals in literal cages for up to two hours.
The cages were approximately 18 square feet, roughly the size of a phone booth, and were equipped with locking systems. In its response, the facility claimed the cages were “calming” areas, but OIG found that in at least one instance, staff used the cages as punishment. The OIG stated that it had never seen this type of restraint.
The report also noted that people in this detention center had insufficient access to legal resources. Phones for legal calls did not work, and the facility did not have a law library. The OIG report concluded that these conditions could have impeded access to counsel for individuals detained at the facility.
ICE tried to evade oversight and accountability over these conditions by passing the buck. In its response to the OIG report, ICE claimed that the state of Florida, not ICE, ran Alligator Alcatraz under the authority of a 287(g) Memorandum of Understanding. The gray area as to which entity was actually in charge of the facility may have allowed these conditions to propagate, as facility staff told OIG they did not know which standards applied. However, ICE was heavily involved in the facility’s administration. ICE officers were constantly present at the detention center and individuals detained received ICE’s Detainee Handbook.
Unfortunately, some of the conditions described in the OIG report are common in detention facilities across the country. In September 2022, for example, OIG reported that the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico also failed to meet health and safety standards and limited access to counsel for those detained at the facility. In July 2023, OIG found that the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia also compromised the health and safety of people at the detention facility.
The Trump administration, with the cooperation of willing state officials like those in Florida, is expanding the use of immigration detention at alarming rates. As of July, the number of people in immigration detention was more than 65,000, and the Trump administration’s goal was to reach 108,000 detention beds by the beginning of 2026.
The rapid and continuous expansion of immigration detention suggests a full-steam-ahead approach without any regards for the rights of those detained. When this facility opened, President Trump said he would like to see more like it in more states, praising the compound by saying, “It might be as good as the real Alcatraz.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dismissed the concerns raised in the report. The governor’s communications director said about the cages, “We’d make [them] even smaller if we could.” It is deeply concerning that, despite its closure, Alligator Alcatraz could continue to be a model for states to get deeper into the business of detaining immigrants, while evading responsibility for civil rights violations.
Further, the OIG report highlights the continued need for robust oversight mechanisms, which the Trump administration has worked to dismantle or sideline. A November 2025 report indicates that the president removed 17 Inspectors General, left Inspector General offices without leadership and defunded some of these offices, minimizing their capacity to conduct investigations. The administration also decimated DHS’ Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, which investigated civil rights violations and issues at detention facilities, respectively. Transparency on these issues cannot be left to the states, as Florida law enforcement agencies have actively blocked access to records under state law.
Under the Trump administration, immigration detention will continue to expand. Congress has authorized unprecedented funding to DHS, none of which is going to improve conditions at these facilities. As problems with conditions at detention facilities increase, the remaining oversight agencies and Congress must — at the very least — ensure that the lives of people ICE chooses to detain are not in danger.
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