Unpacking Amnesty International report alleging 'torture' and 'human rights violations' at Alligator Alcatraz

On Dec. 4, 2025, human rights nonprofit organization Amnesty International published a report alleging multiple examples of human rights abuses — including one practice that would meet the United Nations' definition of torture — committed at the South Florida Detention Facility located in the Florida Everglades that Republican officials have nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz."

The report, titled "Torture and Enforced Disappearances in the Sunshine State: Human Rights Violations at 'Alligator Alcatraz,'" also focused on a facility called Krome North Service Processing Center, located on the outskirts of Miami at the edge of the Everglades.

An Amnesty researcher told Snopes their team toured Krome and spoke to four detainees, all of whom had previously been held at Alligator Alcatraz. Those detainees remained anonymous (Page 8, Footnote 4). The researchers requested access to Alligator Alcatraz but said they received no response from state officials (Page 5). Amnesty's team also spoke to several immigrants rights organizations and immigration lawyers based in South Florida.

Multiple Snopes readers contacted us asking for more information about the report.

Mary Kapron, a researcher at Amnesty International and co-author of the report, discussed her experience in South Florida on a Zoom call with Snopes. She said touring Krome was one of the most emotionally sobering and heavy experiences she has had in the field. 

Speaking via email, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin categorically denied all allegations made in the Amnesty report. "Nearly every single day, my office responds to media questions on FALSE allegations about Alligator Alcatraz," the statement read. "The media is clearly desperate for these allegations of inhumane conditions at this facility to be true."

We also contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment.

The report's allegations were serious. Snopes found no evidence the conclusions were exaggerated or false, including the finding of torture at the South Florida Detention Facility. However, given it was not possible to independently verify all the report's research and interviews, some of which were with anonymous sources, we were not able to apply a rating to its findings.

Some necessary background information

United Nations member states have signed various treaties and conventions vowing to protect and uphold human rights, including the rights of immigrants and refugees. Some critics have branded the U.N., and its treaties and conventions, as "weak" and "ineffective," but these international laws provide the basic framework Amnesty uses to assess its investigations.

As such, the report provided summaries of relevant international law. It later determined that the United States had broken these principles (for example, see pages 41, 51 and 57). 

For instance, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families guarantees a general right for migrant workers to move freely (with restrictions), while the U.N.'s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says (Page 2, Clause 10): "The irregular entry and stay in a country by migrants should not be treated as a criminal offence." In contrast, U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has largely taken a position, both in rhetoric and enforcement, that entering the United States without authorization is a crime.

Arbitrary detention and denial of due process

Arbitrary detention refers to circumstances in which a person has been detained without legal cause. It is illegal under international law. Amnesty's report said it found several practices it felt met the classifications of arbitrary detention.

If someone is in the custody of law enforcement officials, ICE has the option of issuing an "immigration detainer," allowing law enforcement agencies to hold that person for up to 48 hours beyond when they would otherwise have been released, before being transferred into ICE custody. If ICE does not take custody after this period, the law enforcement agency must release the person.

According to the report, officials in Florida ignored the 48-hour time limit (pages 28 and 41). One detainee reportedly told Amnesty International he was in criminal custody before being transferred to ICE. After paying bail, he remained in custody due to a detainer. But 48 hours later he still had not been released. "ICE picked him up at the 56-hour mark and took him to an immigration detention center," the report read (Page 28). Amnesty International classified this as an arbitrary detention because the man was held in custody for hours after he should have been released (Page 29).

When ICE wishes to commence the deportation process of someone in its custody, the agency has 48 hours from the time it takes custody of them to charge that person with removal, "except in the event of an emergency or other extraordinary circumstance in which case a determination will be made within an additional reasonable period of time." This is conducted via a Notice to Appear document. According to court documents cited in Amnesty's report, numerous people have "been held for weeks at the [South Florida] facility without being charged for removal or anything else."

When someone is in custody, international law (and both the Fifth and 14th Amendments in the U.S. Constitution) requires that they receive due process, meaning that person has the right to a lawyer and to speak before a judge. The report repeatedly claimed that people at the South Florida Detention Facility and Krome were regularly denied access to due-process protections.

Kapron, the Amnesty researcher, said this denial of due-process protections was a result of what could be called a loophole in U.S. immigration enforcement. Historically, the federal government or independent contractors own and operate immigrations facilities. For instance, a contractor called Akima Global Services operates Krome. However, the state of Florida constructed the South Florida Detention Facility.

This led to significant legal debates about who, exactly, is in charge of the latter. According to an August NPR report, Florida state officials and the Trump administration have issued contradictory statements about who owns and operates Alligator Alcatraz, to the point that a district judge hearing a case challenging the detention center's legality repeatedly asked "Who's running the show?" 

This ambiguity would explain there being less oversight at the facility. For instance, on July 3, CNN reported that Florida state lawmakers were denied access to the South Florida Detention Facility, despite Florida law allowing legislators to visit state, county and municipal detention facilities "at their pleasure." According to the Miami Herald, the facility is not connected to national ICE databases, with lawyers describing it as near-impossible to track the whereabouts of detainees moved to there. According to Amnesty's report (Page 6), the lack of registration and tracking mechanisms at Alligator Alcatraz [link ours] "facilitates incommunicado detention and constitutes enforced disappearances" when officials refuse to provide a person's whereabouts and detainees are not allowed to contact their lawyers.

One detainee reportedly told Amnesty that his lawyers were blocked from entering Alligator Alcatraz, and that he was never able to speak with them (Page 40). A lawsuit cited in the report claimed the only way a detainee could speak with a lawyer was through "infrequent access to collect pay phone calls" that lasted about five minutes. Additionally, according to several legal service organizations Amnesty said it spoke to, immigrants in the South Florida Detention Facility who had an upcoming meeting with an attorney were transferred to other facilities shortly before the meeting was supposed to take place (Page 41). 

Inhumane conditions

Kapron explained that, historically, Amnesty asks ICE to give detainees a sign-up list if they wish to be interviewed, but ICE denied that request for Amnesty's visit to Krome. The organization found people who were willing to speak only by putting a call out to immigration lawyers in the area. 

But while touring the medical wing of Krome, Kapron said two migrants banged on the windows, pleading to talk: "There is no AC, and they use force. I want to talk about how they put their hands on us," one of them said, according to the report (Page 47). She also said ICE officials then ushered the Amnesty team away. 

According to the Amnesty report (Page 48), which cited a separate report from Human Rights Watch, another nonprofit human rights organization, detainees at Krome were sometimes "forced to kneel to receive food, shackled, and held in frigid, overcrowded cells." The detainees Amnesty spoke to reportedly confirmed those conditions. 

When touring the solitary-confinement block, the Amnesty team said it observed someone putting "a sign through the metal flap opening in the door saying, 'Help Me. I'm on Hunger Strike.'" According to the report, the team asked to speak to that man and was initially allowed to do so, and ICE officials told the researchers he had a broken hand and was in solitary confinement because he was on hunger strike. The man then reportedly told the team he had been waiting 37 days to receive medical care for his broken hand. The following paragraph is taken directly from the Amnesty report (Page 51):

As the man was describing his injuries, an ICE official repeatedly and violently slammed the metal flap against the injured man's hands and forced Amnesty International out of the solitary confinement area stating, "This is a detained population. They can be dangerous. Allow security to do their jobs, also he's not on a hunger strike. He ate yesterday and today."

Krome detainees were said to have told Amnesty that the conditions at Alligator Alcatraz were even worse (Page 49). According to the report, they said they were shackled any time they were taken out of their cages, including when eating. The report described more unsanitary conditions, such as dirty meals and drinking water and guards racially abusing detainees, on pages 33 to 37.

Torture

The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (which the United States has ratified) defines torture as follows:

For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Amnesty said one detainee was ordered into solitary confinement for 60 days after he was accused of slapping a guard's hand. He reportedly served 24 days, during which he received no access to hygiene products, and went nine days without medical attention (pages 50 and 51). The U.N. defines solitary confinement (Page 14, Rule 44) as receiving no "meaningful human contact" for at least 22 hours each day. It considers periods of solitary confinement for more than 15 days torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment (pages 13 and 14, rules 43 and 44).

As before, the practices at the South Florida Detention Facility were said to be even worse. According to Kapron, all four people Amnesty spoke with brought up a device at Alligator Alcatraz called "the box" without being prompted.

The report described the box as "a 2x2 foot cage-like structure" located in the yard where detainees were sent for punishment. Inside, their hands were reportedly shackled and their feet were attached to restraints on the ground, with the cage's dimensions physically preventing a person from sitting down or changing positions. Amnesty claimed that people were kept inside the device for hours, baking in the sun with little water, and were not provided protection from the heat or the insects. 

Kapron explained that Amnesty spoke with two Danish doctors, both experts on torture, about "the box." She said both agreed that it would cause the kind of pain and suffering required to be considered torture. 

Conclusion

One of the principles of international humanitarian law is non-refoulement, which, according to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (Page 1), "applies to all migrants at all times, irrespective of migration status." Refoulement means returning an individual "to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm," through either direct or indirect means. According to the Amnesty report, such indirect means include "using indefinite detention, refusing to process any claims for asylum, or otherwise making life so difficult that the individuals feel compelled to leave the country, even if it means returning to a situation they fear" (Page 12).

If Amnesty's report is accurate, its findings would mean the Trump administration and the state of Florida were violating international law. However, because we were unable to independently verify the details of Amnesty's report, it was not possible to attribute a rating to its claims.

Trump ran for president in 2024 on a platform of mass deportation, describing the U.S. as "under attack" and the situation at the border as "a large-scale invasion." The Amnesty report called his administration's rhetoric against migrants "racist, discriminatory, xenophobic and dehumanizing" (Page 14). The report claimed the purpose of Alligator Alcatraz and Krome is to make the day-to-day lives of migrants in the United States so miserable that they leave on their own volition. Or, as one detainee put it, "ICE's job is to break you. Everything has been a human rights violation" (Page 43).

Kapron said that before Amnesty publishes a report, the organization sends it to the relevant officials to give them the opportunity to comment. ICE was the only agency that provided a comment for Amnesty's report, which read (Page 53): "ICE officials stated that they 'wholly disagree' with Amnesty International's findings but did not provide additional information."