WASHINGTON — Some immigrants detained at Florida’s now-shuttered “Alligator Alcatraz” were confined in outdoor cages only slightly larger than telephone booths for more than an hour at a time, according to a new report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.
The watchdog report marks the first time a government agency has confirmed the existence of the cramped cages at the South Florida Detention Facility. Amnesty International found in a report published in December, based on interviews with detainees and a tour of the facility, that the cages were used to punish detainees and amounted to torture, sparking a congressional probe.
The inspector general’s findings don’t go as far, but the report says that “the use of such restrictive spaces is highly unconventional and does not align with standards for humane treatment.”
The findings are a rare instance when a federal inspector general has publicly criticized the Trump administration. Since he returned to office in 2025, President Donald Trump has fired at least 18 inspectors general, who operate within federal agencies but are tasked with conducting objective audits and investigating allegations of waste, fraud and abuse of power.
Homeland Security’s inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, is one of the few Cabinet-level inspectors general who wasn’t fired in the purge.
DHS IG inspectors visited the facility in January as part of their congressional mandate to inspect detention facilities. The inspector general’s report found the “small metal enclosures” were roughly 4-by-4, or 16 square feet, and facility staff members described them as “calming areas” for “detainees to de-escalate and have time alone.”
The facility also had indoor cages that measured 18 square feet, the report says.
The cages are less than half the size of the smallest spaces where people are supposed to be held at immigration detention facilities. ICE guidelines say rooms designed to hold one person at a time should be a minimum of 37 square feet. By comparison, solitary confinement cells at federal prisons are around 84 square feet.
Built by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, the detention facility, which Florida’s attorney general dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, opened in July 2025 in the Everglades. It was part of a state and federal partnership known as a 287(g) agreement, which allows state and local law enforcement agencies to carry out special immigration enforcement duties, which are otherwise a federal responsibility.
ICE is to provide oversight “to ensure compliance with federal immigration law and ICE policies,” and immigration enforcement activities will be “supervised and directed by ICE,” according to 287(g) agreements between Florida agencies and ICE, which were filed in court documents in a lawsuit over the existence of the facility.
Homeland Security denied that it had authority over day-to-day operations at the facility, writing in a signed response from the DHS undersecretary of management and the acting director of ICE to the inspector general’s report that ICE didn’t have a contract with the state of Florida to run Alligator Alcatraz. Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, also wrote that the 287(g) agreement doesn’t give the federal government authority over the physical operations of any detention facility.
The IG report noted that ICE personnel were on site at the facility and all detainees were given an ICE handbook that said Alligator Alcatraz “is a facility of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” despite the lack of a contract to run day-to-day operations.
DHS didn’t immediately respond to additional questions about the report or the agreement.
DeSantis was asked about the report at his daily news conference and said he hadn’t read it.
“I know that it was inspected, all those standards,” he said of the detention facility. “The goal was not to apply those standards but to exceed those standards.”
DeSantis and Trump toured the facility together and described it at the time as crucial to helping the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort. But the use of tented housing units and detainees’ vulnerability to severe weather immediately drew backlash from Democrats and immigrant advocates — and sparked a series of lawsuits that are ongoing.
The facility shut down in June. DeSantis said it was always meant to be temporary, and detainees were either deported or sent to other federal facilities.
Amnesty International toured the facility in September 2025 and was able to interview four detainees, finding “inhuman and unsanitary conditions,” including overflowing toilets “with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping,” exposure to insects and lights 24 hours a day, according to its report on the tour.
Some of the detainees interviewed for the Amnesty report also described the metal cage, which they called the “box.”
“Individuals are put in the ‘box’, their hands are shackled and their feet are attached to restraints on the ground,” the Amnesty report said. “They are unable to sit down or move positions, and are forced to remain there for hours in the heat with hardly any water or protection from the sun, heat and insects.”
Amnesty concluded that “the use of the ‘box’ as a form of punishment constitutes torture.”
ICE told the inspector general that the detainees were shackled when they were “escorted to the enclosures but not while in them.”
Records reviewed by the inspector general showed that 79 detainees were held in the 16- and 18-square-foot metal cages from July 17, 2025, to Jan. 18.
The average time in one of the cages was just under an hour, and the longest anyone spent was just about two hours, according to the inspector general’s report, which relied on internal records from the facility.
A sign attached to the outside of the “holding cell” said it was used to “provide a safe and secure place in the general population for detainees to reflect on their behavior choices, manage their emotions, reduce stress and practice self-directed behavior.”
According to facility records included in the inspector general’s report, a detainee “may have a maximum of 2 hours to spend in the holding cell and may leave at any time, by detainee request or per staff directive.”
Staffers reported that “time spent in the small metal enclosures is closely monitored, and detainees are not locked in, even though we observed locking mechanisms on them,” the inspector general’s report says. The picture of the cage included in the report shows an exterior-facing door lock similar to one used for a public restroom where a code is punched in to open it.
It’s not clear whether other ICE facilities hold detainees in such close quarters.
The Florida facility cost the state more than $1 billion in taxpayer money, according to state records made public in a lawsuit. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has so far provided Florida $608 million for its operation, according to the inspector general’s report.
Internal government spreadsheets, revealed in court filings and reviewed by NBC News, show the facility cost taxpayers more than $1 million a day to operate.
The typical cost for an ICE detention bed is less than $200 per day, but a bed at the Everglades facility cost in excess of $3,000 per day, according to the court filings.
