<
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/12/attorney-covid-outbreak-alligator-alcatraz>
"An outbreak of a respiratory disease, possibly Covid-19, is running rampant
through the remote Florida immigration jail known as “Alligator Alcatraz”,
according to the attorney of an infected detainee removed from the camp last
week.
Eric Lee said he was told by his client Luis Manuel Rivas Velásquez that
conditions at the facility had deteriorated significantly since Thursday as
more migrants held there by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice)
agency experienced symptoms.
Lee said authorities removed Rivas Velásquez, a 38-year-old Venezuelan man,
from the camp after he was diagnosed in a hospital visit last week, then
secretly taken to a similar facility in Texas.
Protesters at the gates of the jail in the heart of the Florida Everglades have
recorded a number of instances of ambulances arriving and leaving.
Lee said the hastily erected tented camp, which Democratic lawmakers have
decried for holding thousands of undocumented detainees in cages as they await
deportation, is a “petri dish for disease”.
He added: “Based on what multiple detainees have told me, in the last 72 to 100
hours, there is some respiratory disease which has made the majority, or I
would even say vast majority of detainees, sick in some form.
“There are people who are losing breath. There are people who are walking
around coughing on one another. Their requests for masks from the guards are
denied, and they only are allowed to shower once or maybe twice a week.
“I said to Luis, ‘pass the phone. Let me hear it from somebody else. I just
want to make sure that people’s stories are straight.’ And unfortunately they
very much are.”"
Via Janet Logan.
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
