DHS inspector finds phone-booth cages used as ‘calming areas’ at Alligator Alcatraz

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general reported on 14 September that the Florida Everglades camp known as Alligator Alcatraz held immigrants in outdoor metal cages of about 18 square feet, a practice staff called “calming areas” and that investigators said they had not seen at other ICE sites.

The 34-page report, first described by the New York Times and confirmed across U.S. and British outlets, covers an unannounced inspection in January. It counts 79 placements in the cages between 17 July 2025 and 18 January 2026. Time inside ranged from a few minutes to nearly two hours. Each enclosure offered about 18 square feet of floor, less than half the 37 square feet ICE’s own rules set for a single-person space.

Staff told inspectors that some detainees asked to go in. Investigators found at least one case in which a person was put in a cage for failing “to comply with a lawful command.” The report calls the use of the spaces “highly unconventional” and says it “does not align with standards for humane treatment.” Photographs in the file show the cages. Portions were obscured before release.

Living space inside the tents failed a separate test. National detention standards require 75 square feet per person. At peak capacity the housing units gave about 28 square feet, with other passages citing a range of 29 to 41. Inspectors saw as many as 32 people in eight cell areas. Detainees spent most of the day in those units. Showers, the report says, had small insects, and access was limited to three times a week. Food, medical care and hygiene also missed published standards.

The camp sat on the runway of Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, surrounded by Big Cypress National Preserve, about six miles north of Everglades National Park and less than 50 miles west of Miami Beach. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier pitched the site to federal officials in June 2025. Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration built it fast when ICE was short of beds. At its peak it held about 1,500 people in soft-sided tents. President Donald Trump visited last summer and joked that escapees might be eaten by alligators. DeSantis said in June 2026 that the site would close because it was temporary and because hurricane season had arrived. Operations ended in mid-June.

Amnesty International had described the cages months earlier. DeSantis’s office denied the practice at the time. The inspector general’s January dates show the cages were still in use more than a month after that denial. That timeline is the sharpest line in the report. It is not a leak from an advocacy group. It is the department’s own watchdog, working from logs and an unannounced visit.

The report does give the camp credit on two points. Intake procedures and use-of-force files met the standards the inspectors applied. Those passes do not cancel the space and cage findings. They do mean the file is not a blanket condemnation of every process on the airfield.

Lawsuits over treatment and over wetland damage were already in court before Monday. The inspector general’s photographs and the 79-count log will now sit in those cases as a federal document. ICE national detention standards are the measuring stick the report uses. A contractor-run, state-built camp on a training runway was supposed to meet them. The inspectors say it did not on living space, showers or the outdoor cages.

Florida closed the tents. The airstrip and the legal claims remain. The report does not recommend reopening the site. It records what the cages were called, how many people went in, how small they were, and how far the housing units sat below the 75-square-foot rule. That record is now public.