Immigrants detained in three Florida detention centers have been subject to inhumane conditions, according to a report from advocacy group Human Rights Watch released Monday.
The 92-page report documents some alleged conditions detainees have seen at Florida’s Krome North Service Processing Center, Broward Transitional Center and the Federal Detention Center in Miami. The report involved interviews with 11 detained individuals, family members of seven detainees, 14 immigration lawyers and data analysis.
Allegations of substandard medical care were prominent in the report, which cited examples such as a woman with gallstones who vomited and passed out after not receiving care for days. After receiving emergency surgery, she was returned to the same cell without medication.
Another man, who was transferred from one facility to another, was allegedly moved without his daily prescription medication. He eventually collapsed, was hospitalized and his family later found he’d been registered at the hospital under a false name.
This level of medical care, the report alleges, likely contributed to two deaths in custody at Krome and Broward, which Human Rights Watch claims “may have been linked to medical neglect.”
President Donald Trump has overseen an aggressive crackdown on immigration, including the detention and deportation of large numbers of undocumented immigrants. “Mass deportations” was an explicit promise he campaigned on in 2024.
ICE should immediately address the abusive detention conditions, ensure access to medical and mental health care, and provide independent oversight of detention facilities. pic.twitter.com/4DYgsoKGdD
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) July 21, 2025
Tens of thousands of detainees are held in detention facilities across the country every day, including over 50,000 detainees held in a single day the week before the report was released. ICE is set to receive a cash boost from Trump’s marquee domestic policy law for detention expansions and removal operations.
Overcrowding also posed a major issue at the facilities in question. Human Rights Watch interviewees described anywhere between 25 to up to 60 people in a single room. These rooms were often designed for closer to six to 25 people.
Another issue involved transfers. One incident a detainee described involved being transferred from one facility to another, where he and other detainees were left on a bus parked by a facility entrance for nearly 24 hours without food, water or restroom access. They were then removed from the bus and given some refreshments and restroom access, only to be returned to the vehicle for another 24 hours.
Those on the bus were then put in a holding cell for 11 days at Krome. The facility, according to Human Rights Watch, often included frigid conditions, and the holding cells were frequently referred to by detainees with the Spanish word for “ice box.”
One detainee said the air conditioning was “turned up” and “you could not fall asleep because it was so cold. I thought I was going to experience hypothermia.”
Krome, typically a men’s facility, has been holding women without providing access to gender-appropriate care, the report alleges. One detainee, requesting a shower, was told clearing an area in the men’s facility so women could shower “was not feasible.”
One female detainee at Krome was confined without bedding for days in a cell typically only used for intake procedures. She said, “There was only one toilet, and it was covered in feces,” and, “We begged the officers to let us clean it, but they just said sarcastically, ‘Housekeeping will come soon.’ No one ever came.”
Because of the crowding, one detainee alleged she was placed in a cell with an exposed toilet visible to men housed in close visiting rooms.
“If the men stood on a chair or on the desk, they could see right into our room and the toilet. And sometimes they got up to look at us,” she told Human Rights Watch.
“Human Rights Watch believes that intake conditions at Krome documented in this report meet the threshold for inhuman and degrading treatment, particularly when experienced over multiple days and in combination,” the report reads.
The report also details incidents that were dehumanizing. After waiting for an extended period of time for lunch, some shackled detainees were made to eat with their hands behind their back with their mouths, something one compared to eating “like dogs.”
“The Trump administration’s one-track immigration policy, singularly focused on mass deportations will continue to send more people into immigration detention facilities that do not have the capacity to hold them and will only worsen the conditions described in this report,” the report says.
Other allegations detailed in the report included that at Broward, detainees who sought help for emotional distress were put in solitary confinement; and that those who retained legal counsel had limited ability to access their lawyers and were even made to make their calls on speakerphone to prevent them from discussing detention conditions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.