Florida Officials Won't Say If COVID Is Spreading at Everglades Concentration Camp

[mahatmakanejeeves]

GOVERNMENT | HEALTH & WELLNESS | IMMIGRATION

Florida Officials Won't Say If COVID Is Spreading at Alligator Alcatraz

If there's an infectious disease spreading at the facility, the state refuses to say so.

By Alex DeLuca
August 11, 2025



President Donald Trump tours the immigration detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz. Photo by Daniel Torok via Flickr/theWhiteHouse

Alligator Alcatraz, Florida's secretive new immigration detention center, has already drawn scrutiny over claims of inhumane conditions, questions about its legal authority, and recently, allegations about an "outbreak of a serious illness" inside the facility.

But if an infectious disease like, say, COVID-19, is spreading among detainees at the remote site, the state refuses to say so.

On August 7, attorneys Eric Lee and Chris Godshall-Bennet issued a statement on behalf of their client, 38-year-old Venezuelan Luis Manuel Rivas Velásquez, who they say recently suffered a "serious health emergency" while being held at the hastily constructed detention center. According to the statement, Rivas Velasquez, who was previously in good health, collapsed while sitting inside a tent at the facility and "found himself unable to breathe."

He was transported to HCA Florida Kendall Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a respiratory infection, the lawyers say. The statement notes that relatives of other detainees have reported that illness is currently "rampant" at the facility.

{snip}

[sheshe2]

1. By not saying, they are saying it all.

[RockRaven]

2. So it is a Death Camp, until objective outside observers prove otherwise.

[ReRe]

3. Any other time, the CDC would be down there

in their bunny suits finding out WTF is incubating in that hellhole.
I bet you the place hasn't cleaned once since they arrived there.
And the REAL sad thing is, there may not be one guilty person among them.

My grandma would not believe what has happened to the Republican Party.
I hate every GD Republican in our government. There are atrocities going on
all over this country as I sit here typing all because of them.

[modrepub]

4. Working At Prisons/Jails

Is hard work to begin with. At the Federal level, most staff are under paid (bonuses were reduced), under staffed (mandatory overtime), under trained (who has time for training if you’re understaffed) as well as mentally stressed given the environment.

Now if you work in these places, you’re going to expose yourself and your family to communicable diseases.

Funny how the tough on crime people care as little for the people working at these places as the people they’re warehousing in them.