Families say detainees facing reprisals for speaking up about conditions at Miami detention facility

MIAMI — The families of people detained at the downtown Miami Federal Detention Center are living in fear for their loved ones. They say they’re suffering the consequences for recently speaking up about the poor conditions inside.

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On Wednesday, immigrants-rights groups protested outside the federal jail protesting on behalf of those detained inside and their families.

Local 10 News first reported on issues at the facility, including an air conditioning outage in the middle of the scorching South Florida summer, a week prior.

A group of wives of detainees were among the protesters. Their husbands are part of a larger population of immigrants who were once held in the now shut-down “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility in the Everglades.

“Changing the building did not change the suffering,” activist Arianne Betancourt said.

“They have to drink out of the sink,” another woman said. “There’s cockroaches.”

The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed to Local 10 News the building had an air conditioning problem, but it claims it was fixed.

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Annett Uset Dumont said since speaking to us last week, she claims her husband was placed in something called “the hole.”

“This guy you see on my shirt, his name Daikel Dumont Rodriguez and he’s currently in the FDC up in solitary confinement because I decided to talk to the news,” she said. “The hole is in the 12th floor and is in isolation.”

An FBOP spokesperson confirmed “the hole” is slang for disciplinary segregation, but declined to elaborate saying that “for privacy, safety, and security reasons, we do not comment on the conditions of confinement for any incarcerated individual.”

Dumont’s husband never called Local 10 News directly, but others did.

Officials with the FBOP said detainees are allowed to call members of the news media.

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