Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “last week, I conducted an unannounced oversight visit to the Everglades detention camp the Trump administration and…”

“last week, I conducted an unannounced oversight visit to the Everglades detention camp the Trump administration and Florida's government despicably named Alligator Alcatraz. While the employees in charge honored the legal requirement to allow me in, for the 3 hours I was there they wouldn't allow me to speak with the people they had put in cages. Because I arrived without notifying ICE, as Federal law allows, they had no time to whitewash the inhumane conditions. I want to tell Americans the truth about what is being done in the middle of our Everglades, in our name, and on our dime. Mr. Speaker, when you walk into this facility's dormitory area, which is a series of massive tents built on top of a tarmac, all you see are cages. Inside were 32 adult men, from ages 18 to 75, all packed into each cage, eight cages per tent, with 1,500 packed in that way in total. The cages are clearly unsanitary. It is dirty and smells like urine. Men used the toilet inside the cages with only an open-sided, pelvis-level wall a few feet from the beds with toilets that have feces remnants in them. So whom have they put in these cages? Are they convicted criminals? Some possibly are. Let's be clear: Convicted criminals should be deported. However, the vast majority are not that. Do they pose an immediate public threat? Under ICE's own risk assessments, the vast majority do not. Yet everyone there suffers, and that suffering is very intentional because cruelty is the point.”