Miami, Florida: Marie Ange Blaise was gasping for air when the women around her started screaming. The 44-year-old Haitian woman had collapsed inside the Broward Transitional Center. One of the detainees pounded on the cell door, pleading for help. But for over 30 minutes, no one came.
“We were yelling and yelling. She was not moving,” the witness later told investigators.
By the time a medical team arrived, Blaise had lost consciousness. She died shortly after.
Her story is one of many in a new human rights investigation that reveals widespread abuses at three immigration detention centres in or near Miami, Florida.
Released on Monday by Human Rights Watch along with Americans for Immigrant Justice and Sanctuary of the South, the report offers a chilling glimpse into the lives of people detained inside Krome North Service Processing Center, the Broward Transitional Center and the Federal Detention Center.
Maksym Chernyak had begged for a doctor. The 44-year-old Ukrainian national was suffering chest pain, fever and vomiting inside the Krome facility. For days, he was ignored. When he finally collapsed, guards accused him of using drugs. His cellmate, Carlos, said the claim was a lie.
He was declared brain dead shortly after being taken out on a stretcher. He never regained consciousness.
The report, based on interviews with detainees, their families, lawyers and even government records, accuses U.S. authorities of systematic neglect, inhumane treatment and medical indifference – failures that may have contributed to multiple deaths.
‘Treated As Less Than Human’
The 92-page report paints a disturbing portrait of immigration detention under the Donald Trump administration, highlighting how overcrowding, gendered abuse and denial of basic care became normalised within facilities already stretched beyond their limits.
“People in immigration detention are being treated as less than human. These are not isolated incidents,” said Belkis Wille, crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement accompanying the report.
Detainees described being refused medication, punished for seeking mental health care and locked in solitary confinement for speaking up.
One woman held in the male-only Krome facility said she was denied access to a shower for days and forced to use an open toilet in full view of male detainees.
“If the men stood on a chair, they could see right into our room. We begged to shower, but they told us it was not possible because it was a male facility,” she alleged.
Others described extreme overcrowding, with 30 to 40 people packed into spaces designed for six. Mattresses were scarce, and many slept on the floor. Soap, sanitary products and even drinking water ran short. At one point, detainees were told to relieve themselves in a bucket.
A British businessman, Harpinder Chauhan, who was arrested by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after a routine appointment, recalled being threatened when he repeatedly asked for a toilet that flushed.
“They told us if we kept asking, they would create a problem we wouldn’t like,” Chauhan said.
‘Alligator Alcatraz’ – the Trump Deportation Machine
The investigation links these abuses to a broader policy shift under President Trump, whose mass-deportation strategy flooded detention centres without providing adequate oversight or resources.
As ICE scrambled to contain rising numbers, the government turned to quick-build detention projects, including a Florida state-funded facility nicknamed ‘Alligator Alcatraz’.
Federal data cited in the report shows the number of detainees soaring from 39,000 shortly after Trump took office in January to nearly 57,000 by July.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the administration was seeking to scale up to 100,000 detention beds and fast-tracking new facilities on military bases and ICE properties.
Passed earlier this year, Trump’s 2025 budget includes an unprecedented $45 billion allocated to new detention centres.
“These deaths and abuses are not accidents. They are the direct result of a government that treats immigration enforcement as a battlefield and detainees as expendable,” said one of the report’s co-authors.
Legal and Moral Violations
The conditions detailed in the report violate both U.S. federal standards and international law, according to legal analysts. Immigration detention in the United States is supposed to be administrative, not punitive. Most detainees are awaiting court hearings or pursuing asylum claims, not serving criminal sentences.
Yet the findings suggest that many are enduring worse treatment than those in prisons.
Medical neglect, gender-based mistreatment, excessive use of force and lack of sanitation are among the top documented violations.
The report also raises concerns about accountability, emphasising that ICE contracts much of its detention network to private corporations and local authorities with little federal oversight.
The authors have called for a full investigation, the immediate release of vulnerable detainees and a halt to further detention expansion in Florida and nationwide.
As for the families of Marie Ange Blaise and Maksym Chernyak, they are left with questions that may never be answered and the agony of knowing their loved ones died in places designed to keep them confined, not cared for.
