First official confirmation: cages violated ICE’s own detention rules
The environmental lawsuit and the DHS watchdog report together mark an expanding accountability record for the Florida detention camp, whose roughly $1.2 million daily operating cost and harsh conditions drew criticism from Democrats, environmental groups and human rights organizations during its year of operation.
In August, an alliance of environmental groups filed an amended lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the state of Florida, seeking restitution for damage caused by the presence of the facility from its opening in July 2025 — harm they argue is still ongoing. The legal action is the latest accountability thread stemming from the remote Florida Everglades camp, which Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration ran on behalf of the federal government.
The immigration jail closed in June after a year of operation during which DeSantis boasted of detaining and deporting more than 21,000 immigrants. Officials cited the risk of holding detainees in tents during hurricane season for the closure.
On Monday, the DHS Office of Inspector General published findings from an unannounced January 2026 visit by inspectors to the facility in Ochopee, Florida, which the office refers to as the Florida Soft-Sided Facility (FSSF). The report provides the first official confirmation that guards repeatedly used the highly restrictive cages on detainees in direct contravention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rules.
It documented 79 instances between July 2025 and January 2026 in which guards placed detainees in the outdoor metal cages — known to detainees as “The Box” — for up to two hours at a time. Each cage offered about 18 square feet of floor space, the report noted — less than half the minimum 37 square feet required for single-person spaces by ICE’s own published national detention standards. The watchdog said the practice “does not align with standards for humane treatment.”
“Use of these small metal enclosures for any reason is unprecedented among ICE facilities inspected by OIG,” the report said. “Confining individuals in small metal enclosures for any reason presents significant risks to detainee health and wellbeing.”
The inspector general’s office report exposed numerous failings found during the January tour. Many of the shortcomings, the watchdog said, posed “significant risks to detainee health and safety.”
The report acknowledged concerns raised in March by Democratic US senators Jon Ossoff of Georgia and Dick Durbin of Illinois over the use of the cages. Facility staff told inspectors the cages served as “calming areas” for detainees “to deescalate and have time alone,” and maintained that detainees asked to spend time in them. Inspectors found at least one documented instance in which a cage was used as a disciplinary measure for a detainee who “failed to comply with a lawful command,” and they noted that the cages had locking mechanisms.
The inspector general’s discovery of cases in January means detainees were still being confined in the cramped cages more than a month after Amnesty International exposed the practice and DeSantis’s office denied it was taking place.
Other failures noted by inspectors during their tour of detention spaces, kitchen and bathroom areas included overcrowding, a lack of sufficient recreation time, inoperable telephones that prevented detainees from contacting their attorneys or families, and poor food hygiene standards leading to risk of contamination and illness. Multiple detainees told inspectors in January they had limited or no access to clean drinking water.
“FSSF did not provide detainees with sufficient living space, creating cramped conditions for detainees who spent most of their time in their housing units, which may harm detainees’ physical and mental health,” the report said.
The Guardian reported in June that the practice appeared to be continuing, with detainees complaining that guards were withholding clean water and food as punishment — or until they signed documents in English that they did not understand.
In December 2025, the Guardian first reported on an Amnesty International dossier detailing multiple alleged human rights abuses at the camp, including the shackling of detainees outside in metal cages for hours and exposure to brutal heat, sunshine and swarms of mosquitoes. At the time, a spokesperson for DeSantis dismissed the claims as “fabrications” and called the Amnesty report “a politically motivated attack.” The same spokesperson did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment on Monday.
Critics said the roughly $1.2 million in taxpayers’ money DeSantis’s administration was spending on the camp daily was fast becoming a political millstone. Separate lawsuits swirled over the jail’s impact on the environmentally fragile Florida wetlands, and the harsh mental and physical treatment of detainees was decried as akin to “torture” by several Democratic lawmakers.
The Florida Department of Emergency Management, which oversaw the operation of the facility using private guards, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
The inspectors issued 10 recommendations for Alligator Alcatraz, including discontinuing the use of the cages — but all are in effect moot since the facility closed in June.