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America’s Hidden Gulags: Torture, Disappearances, and Forced Deportation

  • Writer: Jay
    Jay
  • Dec 14, 2025
  • 7 min read

How Florida Created a Shadow Prison System for Asylum Seekers With No Oversight, No Justice, and No Way Out

Illustration of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in the Florida Everglades, where barbed wire, floodlights, and isolation replace due process and dignity for detained migrants. © Tercer Piso / Amnesty International


Florida, 2025: In the sweltering heat of the Everglades, behind walls of secrecy and steel, the United States is operating what can only be described as a modern-day torture camp. Amnesty International’s explosive new report, “Torture and Enforced Disappearances in the Sunshine State,” reveals a nightmarish landscape of abuse, degradation, and vanishing people inside Florida’s immigration detention centers, most notably the Everglades Detention Facility, ominously nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

This is not hyperbole. This is America in 2025, where people are shackled like animals, locked in cages, denied medical care, and disappeared into the bureaucratic abyss.

“Alligator Alcatraz” is the first state-owned, state-run immigration detention facility in U.S. history. That means no federal oversight, no access to federal systems, and no way for families or lawyers to know where detainees are being held, or if they are alive.


Torture, Isolation, and Death by Neglect

The Amnesty report describes feces seeping into sleeping areas, mosquito-infested tents, no showers, and lights blazing 24 hours a day. Some detainees are held in what is described as “the box,” a 2x2-foot cage where individuals are shackled to the ground, left in the elements, and denied water for hours. Amnesty International categorically calls it torture.

At both Krome and Alligator Alcatraz, many detainees have died from medical neglect. Requests for insulin, psychiatric medication, or emergency care are often ignored. In 2025, the situation has worsened. This year is now the deadliest in ICE detention history. With more than 23 deaths confirmed so far, the United States is witnessing a record death toll among detained immigrants. The causes range from medical neglect to suicide, heat-related complications, and delayed emergency response. The number of deaths has already surpassed totals from any year in the past two decades.

These are not isolated tragedies. They are part of a broader system marked by incarceration without oversight, denial of healthcare, torture, and coerced deportation. The total cost: over $360 million in state contracts already spent, with $450 million more projected annually. These funds have been diverted from emergency response and social services under Governor DeSantis’s discretionary “disaster” powers.


ICE agent standing outside of a medical unit with men screaming “help!” © Tercer Piso / Amnesty International


“The powers that be are absolutely profiting off of having as many people as possible [in detention]. We have had clients who have been begging to be deported but just keep getting transferred … this is an infinite torture loop that focuses on the harm people are experiencing. People are dying. People are being tortured, people are being beaten, people are losing their humanity.” - Interview with SOS, Miami, Florida, 24 September 2025.


Enforced Disappearances in the U.S.

By refusing to log detainees in ICE systems, “Alligator Alcatraz” has created a shadow detention system. Amnesty calls this “enforced disappearance,” a grave violation under international law, typically associated with totalitarian regimes. Detainees are denied access to attorneys, phone calls, or legal aid, and families searching for loved ones are met with silence. This is Guantánamo by another name, but on U.S. soil, in the heart of Florida.

Programs like CBP One and Project Homecoming are being used to launder coerced departures as “voluntary,” even for asylum seekers with credible claims. Migrants are told they will be held indefinitely, or worse, unless they sign removal papers. One said, “They told me I would die here unless I signed. So I signed.”

According to independent data from 2025, fewer than 30% of those in ICE detention have any criminal conviction, and fewer than 5% have ever been convicted of a violent crime. That means that of the more than 60,000 people detained, over 57,000 individuals have no violent criminal record whatsoever. Yet state officials regularly demonize migrants by calling them “rapists,” “invaders,” and “criminal illegal aliens.” This manufactured narrative fuels support for facilities that, in reality, target the vulnerable.


Massive tent facility with endless rows of cots © Tercer Piso / Amnesty International


“It got to the point where I couldn’t even stand up because of the pain in my back, lungs and kidneys. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom. Sometimes I was taken to the medical area, but I was shackled the whole time. I eventually was taken to a hospital in Kendall and found out that I had kidney stones and back inflammation. I was given some pills and patches for my back but was sent back to “Alligator Alcatraz” that same day. There I asked for the pills and patches, but they weren’t given to me. I had to ask other people in my cell if they could help lift me up and walk me to the toilet so I could go to the bathroom. I asked for a walker but was told I couldn’t have one. I urinated myself several times because I was embarrassed to always be asking others for help. I felt humiliated.” - Individual previously detained at “Alligator Alcatraz”



A Chilling Echo of Nazi Germany

This descent into state-sponsored cruelty demands historical reckoning. The parallels to Nazi Germany’s early years are unmistakable and horrifying.

Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, opened in March 1933, just weeks after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. At that time the camp was presented as a place for “protective custody” of political opponents, with no judicial oversight and no meaningful legal rights for those detained. People simply vanished into the system. Like “Alligator Alcatraz,” these early camps were extralegal, operating outside formal court systems, with detainees denied legal representation and families left in the dark. Dachau’s establishment in 1933 occurred nearly a decade before the Holocaust’s mass murder phase, showing how quickly a regime can normalize arbitrary detention and cruelty on a massive scale.


The Nazis used propaganda to portray detainees as criminals, parasites, and threats to the German people. Jews and other minorities, political dissidents, and migrants were described as “degenerate,” “vermin,” and “disease.” This language was deliberately chosen to strip them of humanity. It served a specific function: to justify their extrajudicial detention, abuse, and eventual annihilation. It was not merely hate speech. It was policy in disguise, preparing the public to accept state violence as a form of national self-defense.

The institutionalization of cruelty, as seen with “the box” and routine shackling, mirrors the early Gestapo methods that normalized torture under the pretense of national security. We are witnessing a systematic erosion of legal norms, driven by xenophobia and legitimized through executive orders and emergency powers. That is exactly how authoritarian regimes consolidate control.


The abuses documented in Florida reflect precisely the kinds of state violence that the world sought to prevent after World War II. During the Nuremberg Trials, Nazi officials were held accountable for crimes against humanity, including mass deportation, torture, and extermination of civilians. The trials established that systematic state cruelty was not just immoral, but criminal under international law.


The Nuremberg Trials held some of the highest-ranking Nazi officials accountable for crimes against humanity, including torture, mass murder, and the systematic abuse of detainees. Of the 24 main defendants, 12 were sentenced to death and others received long prison terms. These were followed by additional trials such as the Doctors’ Trial, where physicians were prosecuted for medical atrocities including forced sterilization, torture, and murder of prisoners. The tribunal established that state actors could be held personally responsible for policies of cruelty and that “just following orders” was not a defense. These trials laid the foundation for modern international human rights law and affirmed that medical neglect, inhumane detention, and coerced treatment are not only abuses. They are crimes.


Individual held in ‘the box’ at “Alligator Alcatraz.” Described as a cage you would find at the zoo, where people are shackled at their feet and wrists and chained to the ground, under the hot sun. © Tercer Piso / Amnesty International


“There was a ‘box’ outside that was used to punish people. 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. Any time that anyone demanded that our rights be respected, they were punished.” - Individual previously detained at “Alligator Alcatraz”


Amnesty’s Demands

Amnesty International is calling for the immediate closure of Alligator Alcatraz, the prohibition of all state-run immigration detention, an end to the mass deportation apparatus, and full compliance with international human rights law.

But time is running out. Every day that this facility operates, the United States slides deeper into moral catastrophe. The brutality exposed in these testimonies demands more than outrage. It requires immediate action.


The question is no longer: How could this happen in America?

The question now is: What will we do to stop it?


Take Action

ACLU of Florida: RAISE Legal Observer Program: RAISE legal observers are volunteers who help respond to, verify, and document immigration enforcement reports. You do not have to be an attorney to be a legal observer. For more information please visit this website.


PEACE Prayer Vigil: Saturday, December 13th at 10:30 am-11:30 am in front of the Florida Highway Patrol Station located at 1299 W. Lantana Rd., Lantana 33462. PEACE clergy will be leading us in prayer for the families, individuals, and communities that have been impacted by immigration raids and family separations. Note: PEACE asks that you do not bring signs. They will be passing out flowers.

Parking: please park at the Aldi, Wawa, or Publix on Lantana Road and carpool if you are able.


ACLU of Florida: Know Your Rights for Immigrants Training: Tuesday, December 16th, 7-8pm on Zoom -- Join the ACLU of Florida for this webinar focused on constitutional rights and ways to protect yourself. To register, please visit this website.

Read the Full ReportFor full documentation, testimonies, photos, and legal analysis, read Amnesty International’s 61-page report:📄 Torture and Enforced Disappearances in the Sunshine State🔗 https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AMR51/0511/2025/en/




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