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Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Florida state rep: Trump building ‘modern-day concentration camps'
Florida state Rep. Angela Nixon (D) condemned President Trump's visit to the opening of 'Alligator Alcatraz' — a new migrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades. 'This isn't about safety. This is actually about Donald Trump building modern-day concentration camps in an effort to disappear people from our communities,' Nixon said Tuesday during an appearance on CNN's 'Out Front.' 'Donald Trump's blueprint for America has now become barbed wire and broken families,' she told host Erin Burnett. Her comments come days after large groups gathered for mass demonstrations popped up across the country to protest the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration — including mass deportations, controversy over migrant flights, an uptick in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids to foreign student visa revocations. 'You don't make America great again by doing these types of things,' Nixon said. 'All he's simply doing is returning our country to the worst chapters of our history.' The migrant facility, built near a remote airport, includes soft-sided holding units for hundreds of detainees through a partnership funded by the federal government and maintained by the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM). Additional holding units are expected to be added through next month. The Trump administration has argued the site will help hold migrants awaiting deportation. 'There is only one road leading in, and the only way out is a one-way flight. It is isolated and surrounded by dangerous wildlife and unforgiving terrain,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier this week. 'The facility will have up to 5,000 beds to house, process and deport criminal illegal aliens.' 'This is an efficient and low-cost way to help carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in American history,' she added. Trump visited the 'Alligator Alcatraz' site Tuesday alongside Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. He lauded the natural barriers blockading the building. 'It's known as 'Alligator Alcatraz,' which is very appropriate, because I looked outside and it's not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon,' he told reporters on Tuesday. 'We're surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland and the only way out is, really, deportation.' The president, ahead of his trip, joked about how migrants could evade alligators: 'Don't run in a straight line.' Democrats have pushed back against Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) described the site as an 'internment camp' while House Democrats are lobbying for the site's closure. 'They target migrants, rip families apart, and subject people to conditions that amount to physical and psychological torture in facilities that can only be described as hell on Earth,' Frost said in a statement last week. 'Now, they want to erect tents in the blazing Everglades sun and call it immigration enforcement. They don't care if people live or die; they only care about cruelty and spectacle.' 'I've toured these facilities myself — real ones, not the makeshift tents they plan to put up — and even those detention centers contain conditions that are nothing short of human rights abuses,' he continued at the time. 'Places where people are forced to eat, sleep, shower, and defecate all in the same room. Places where medical attention is virtually non-existent.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Kilmar Ábrego García was tortured in Salvadorian prison, court filing alleges
Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and detained in one of that country's most notorious prisons, was physically and psychologically tortured during the three months he spent in Salvadorian custody, according to new court documents filed Wednesday. While being held at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador, Ábrego García and 20 other men 'were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM', according to the court papers filed by his lawyers in the federal district court in Maryland. Guards struck anyone who fell from exhaustion while kneeling, and during that time, 'Ábrego García was denied bathroom access and soiled himself', according to the filing. Detainees were held in an overcrowded cell with no windows, and bright lights on 24 hours a day. They were confined to metal bunk beds with no mattresses. Ábrego García's testimony is one of the first detailed insights the world has into the conditions inside Cecot, a megaprison that human rights groups say is designed to disappear people. His lawyers say he lost 31 pounds during his first two weeks of confinement. Later, they write, he and four others were transferred to a different part of the prison 'where they were photographed with mattresses and better food–photos that appeared to be staged to document improved conditions'. The filings also note that officials within the prison acknowledged that Ábrego García was not a gang member, and that his tattoos did not indicate a gang affiliation. 'Prison officials explicitly acknowledged that plaintiff Ábrego García's tattoos were not gang-related, telling him 'your tattoos are fine,'' per the filing, and they kept him in a cell separate from those accused of gang membership. The prison officials, however, threatened to move Ábrego García into a cell with gang members whom officials said 'would 'tear' him apart'. Related: Cooperating witness against Kilmar Ábrego García to be spared deportation Ábrego García is currently in federal custody in Nashville. The Trump administration brought him back from El Salvador after initially claiming it was powerless to do so. The US justice department wants him to stand trial on human-smuggling charges. The administration has also accused him of being a member of the street gang MS-13, and Donald Trump has claimed that Ábrego García's tattoos indicate that he belonged to the gang. Ábrego García has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have characterized as an attempt to justify the administration's mistake in deporting him after the fact. On Sunday , a Tennessee judge ordered his release while his criminal case plays out, but prosecutors said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would take Ábrego García into custody if that were to happen and he would be deported before he was given the chance to stand trial. A justice department lawyer, Jonathan Guynn, also told a federal judge in Maryland that the administration would deport Ábrego García not to El Salvador but to another, third country – contradicting statements from attorney general Pam Bondi that he would be sent to El Salvador. Amid the confusion, Ábrego García's lawyers requested that their client remain in criminal custody, fearing that if he were released, he would be deported. Upcoming hearings in both Maryland and Tennessee will help decide whether Ábrego García will be able to remain in the US and be released from jail.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How $45 billion in ‘big, beautiful bill' funding aids ICE detention
More than $45 billion in the 'big, beautiful bill' that President Trump signed Friday is earmarked for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention space, which officials say will add up tens of thousands of beds for migrants being held in federal custody. An estimated $170 billion of the bill has been designated for immigration enforcement as the Trump administration has promised to orchestrate the largest mass deportation effort in American history. But the funding that has been devoted to ICE detention space in the final bill. passed by the House on Thursday, is more than the government spent on housing migrants during the Obama, Biden and first Trump administrations combined, The Washington Post reported. Federal officials estimate the $45 billion will provide an additional 100,000 beds in ICE facilities at a time when ICE has nearly 56,400 migrants in its detention centers nationwide as of mid-June, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The number of detainees increased by more than 5,000 during the first two weeks of June. Data showed that of those detained, 28 percent have a prior criminal conviction, while 25 percent have pending criminal charges. The funding bump in the bill was approved after Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary (DHS) Kristi Noem toured a new detention facility that administration officials have called 'Alligator Alcatraz.' White House Border Czar Tom Homan told NewsNation's 'CUOMO' this week that the facility in the Florida Everglades will cost an estimated $450 million to operate each year. But officials said the facility could be a blueprint for more ICE detention centers that the government plans to open now that funding has been approved. President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others, tour 'Alligator Alcatraz,' a new migrant detention facility at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility, Tuesday, July 1, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) 'Everybody we arrest, we need a bed, because they're going to be in detention from several days to several months, depending on the case,' Homan said. 'So, this will give us a little breathing room, give us extra beds so we can target more criminals throughout the country.' The border czar had previously called on Congress to provide more funding for detention that would allow ICE to detain migrants taken into federal custody. In June, the agency published a list of more than 40 contractors that could assist with the 'emergency acquisition' of space for migrant detainees, the Post reported. In addition to the $45 billion set aside for ICE detention and agents, the funding bill that was approved by Congress this week allocates another $46 billion for continued construction of the border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Real Clear Politics reported this week that the $45 billion that will be devoted to ICE represents a 265 percent increase in its current detention budget, which will be higher than that of the American prison system. The current load of detainees is the highest since that data has been compiled by ICE since the first time Trump was in office. In addition to providing more beds, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement to the Post that the funding for ICE in the bill will allow the agency to hire an additional 10,000 federal agents. Officials announced earlier this year that the agency's migrant detention centers were at capacity. The government contracts with private prison companies to operate detention facilities. The two main companies, CoreCivic and the GEO Group, have been awarded nine contracts by ICE for expanded detention, per the Post. Contracts have also been awarded to companies to produce temporary tent structures, which would be used to house migrants, the report said. Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) determined through a Freedom of Information Act request that private companies were looking to enter into government contracts in states like Michigan, California, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Washington state. The Post's report indicated that CoreCivic and the Geo Group already own prisons that are sitting empty in several states, including Kansas (Leavenworth), Colorado, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Oklahoma. The ACLU also reported that in 2022, the GEO Group made $1.05 billion in revenue from ICE contracts alone, while CoreCivic made $552.2 million during the same year. 'Never in our 42-year company history have we had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right now,' said CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger during an earnings call in May with shareholders, according to The Associated Press. The expansion of detention space comes at a time when more than a dozen people have died in ICE facilities since October, including 10 during 2025. In 2024, an ACLU report indicated that 95 percent of deaths that took place in ICE facilities between 2017 and 2021 could have been prevented or possibly prevented. That investigation, which was conducted by the ACLU, American Oversight and Physicians for Human Rights, analyzed the deaths of the 52 people who died in ICE custody during that time frame. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
