In early May, NPR received a concerning text message from a woman named Maria, who reached out for help regarding her brother detained at the Krome Detention Center in Miami.
Along with her message, she shared a screenshot of her brother’s photo, depicting his swollen red eyes, alongside his detainee information.
“Please help me. I’m desperate,” she wrote.
For the sake of her brother’s safety, Maria requested that their last name be withheld, as he has been held in detention for over two months.
Maria described her brother’s distressing health condition, citing a fever and a serious eye infection that persisted for nearly two weeks, along with claims that he had been denied medication for both.
“There are a lot of sick people there, and they aren’t getting medical attention,” she said in an interview with NPR.
“They are sleeping on the floor, and sometimes don’t get meals.”
Florida has recently pledged to exemplify state cooperation with President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
As detention centers fill to capacity in Florida and across the nation, NPR has received numerous distressing messages highlighting severe overcrowding and inhumane conditions in immigration facilities.
More than a dozen detainees, along with their family members and lawyers, recounted similar experiences as Maria, detailing a desperate lack of food and medical care.
Krome, managed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has faced longstanding allegations of inhumane conditions, including investigations by the Department of Justice in 2000 over accusations of sexual abuse.
Tragically, two deaths have already occurred at the facility this year: Ukrainian immigrant Maksym Chernayak and Genry Ruiz Guillen from Honduras.
On a recent morning, a group of Krome detainees staged a human “SOS” sign in the patio to draw attention to their plight.
In response to this demonstration, ICE stated that “a group of detainees at the Krome Service Processing Center decided to stage a peaceful sit-in in the center’s recreation area.
There have been no injuries or use of force of any kind during this demonstration.”
ICE emphasized their commitment to ensuring that individuals in custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments.
However, Miami-based lawyer Jeff Botelho expressed concern after hearing from a client at Krome who recounted that he and others had been forced to sleep on the floor for weeks and were only receiving a cup of rice and a glass of water daily.
“It was very concerning,” Botelho said.
As overcrowding becomes the new normal across the U.S., experts warn that the federal government currently holds over 48,000 individuals in immigration detention, reflecting a 20% increase since January.
Yet deportations have not kept pace with this rise in detentions, a situation exacerbated by increased raids and arrests within the country.
Adam Isacson from the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a nonprofit immigrant advocacy organization, estimated that ICE’s facilities are functioning at 125% of capacity.
“There’s incredible pressure to ramp up arrests inside the interior of the United States,” he noted, while highlighting the inadequacy in deportation rates.
ICE acknowledged to NPR that “some ICE facilities are experiencing temporary overcrowding due to recent increases in detention populations.
We are actively implementing measures to manage capacity while maintaining compliance with federal standards and our commitment to humane treatment,” they stated.
However, Isacson argued that accusations regarding conditions do not reflect ICE’s stated policies or practices.
The surge to nearly 50,000 detainees stands in stark contrast to the numbers reported during the Biden administration, which recorded 39,703 detentions in January 2025.
Expert Austin Kocher from Syracuse University, who diligently monitors immigration statistics, stated that actual immigration arrest numbers remain undisclosed by local or federal authorities.
ICE has not yet responded to NPR’s inquiries regarding the specific detention numbers in Florida for the current year.
Deportation figures present even more complexity, with the government claiming over 160,000 deportations since Trump took office for a second term in January.
However, many experts express skepticism regarding these statistics.
Tom Cartwright, who has tracked deportation flight data for years, indicated that while deportation flights were fairly consistent in frequency until recently, they have ramped up in the past few weeks from four to five flights daily to six to seven, mostly targeting Central America.
Though it is challenging to pinpoint the number of detainees per flight, Cartwright generally estimates that flights can accommodate between 120 and 150 individuals, meaning that at most, about 1,050 people could be deported each day out of the approximately 50,000 currently in detention.
Reports of overcrowding, illness, and inadequate nutrition continue to surface from detention facilities.
J., a family member of a detainee at Glades County Detention Center in Moore Haven, Florida, reached out to NPR expressing grave concerns about the conditions there.
He reported that his loved one was not only receiving spoiled food but also went without proper meals.
Many detainees confirmed similar experiences during conversations with NPR, stating that they had been forced to sleep on the floor for weeks without any recourse.
The conditions at Krome have drawn attention from lawmakers as well.
Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida conducted a surprise site visit and revealed alarming details about the intake area where numerous men are “crammed into the perimeter of a very tiny room for up to 48 hours.
They defecate in front of each other, they eat, they sleep on stone floors.
It’s really inhumane.”
Echoing this dire situation, advocates have raised similar concerns on a national level.
Setareh Ghandehari, the advocacy director at Detention Watch Network, remarked, “We have seen a rapid deterioration over the last few months.
We’ve been hearing reports that there isn’t enough food, with some detainees using the term ‘starving.'”
So far this year, there have been nine deaths reported within ICE detention, a rate that could position 2023 as the deadliest year since 2020, with at least three of those fatalities occurring in Florida.
The Trump administration aims to drastically amplify the rate of immigrant arrests up to 3,000 daily.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller stated last week, “President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day.”
The discussion surrounded a sweeping budget bill that is currently being debated in the Senate, which proposes $75 billion over the next couple of years dedicated to ICE, including $45 billion for detention facilities and $14.4 billion for removal operations.
Miller claimed this funding would facilitate the establishment of a permanently secure immigration system in the U.S.
However, immigrant advocates caution that such measures primarily expand mass detention and surveillance systems without effectively addressing the roots of immigration issues.
Deborah Fleischaker, who served as the acting chief of staff for ICE during the Biden administration, expressed concern.
She suggested that the proposed funding is not intended to expedite removals of undocumented immigrants but is designed more to prolong their detention.
Fleischaker acknowledged that while ICE has historically operated underfunded, the current proposed budget is extreme and beyond what the public likely imagines when they voted for Donald Trump.
Isacson added that the current trends are prone to escalating, warning of the normalization of rough tactics in which plainclothes individuals forcibly remove immigrants from the streets and depart with them in unmarked vehicles.
Such operations may soon extend to military bases serving as detention facilities across the country.
On a more personal note, the situation affects families deeply.
In her correspondence to NPR at the end of May, Vivian Ortega from Venezuela described her ongoing anguish regarding her son, Jhonkleiver Ortega.
Jhonkleiver arrived in the U.S. three years ago for work in construction, yet he was detained after being apprehended while driving without a license, a legal issue faced by many immigrants in Florida due to their status.
Vivian sold her house in Venezuela to post his $7,000 bond in January, only for him to be re-detained after a subsequent court hearing in February.
Limited communication from her son amplified her fears regarding his wellbeing in his current conditions,
where food scarcity remained a primary concern.
Data trackers and policy experts underline that the Trump administration’s objective of deporting one million migrants annually is unrealistic, stressing the preference for encouraging self-deportation.
Isacson noted, “The fact that detention is often so unsafe and unhealthy leads me to believe that there’s also a desire to wear people down.”
High-profile deportation flights that have evoked fear aroud immigrants, such as those to Guantanamo Bay or El Salvador’s notorious detention center CECOT, have become notorious in recent weeks.
For Vivian, the prospects of these deportation flights became a source of constant anxiety.
Finally, on June 3, NPR succeeded in locating Jhonkleiver at Glades Detention Center in Florida after he had attended immigration court the day prior.
With permission from Vivian, NPR recorded their conversation, in which Jhonkleiver expressed his frustrations with the ongoing asylum process.
He revealed to his mother that he was compelled to gather evidence of torture endured in Venezuela to accompany his case and that he would likely have to wait four months for a decision.
“I can’t anymore. It’s been months of this. They barely feed us here,” he admitted, highlighting the dire circumstances they are enduring.
Jhonkleiver conveyed his hesitation about continuing to endure detention, articulating, “I asked to be deported. This week or next, I will be on a flight to Venezuela.”
Shocked by his statement, Vivian asked for reassurance about the nature of potential deportation.
He raised the frightening question of whether the deportation flight might accidentally redirect to another country, prompting a response from the judge about procedures in such a situation.
As the plight of those detained continues, families grapple with the uncertain realities of immigration policy and the treatment of their loved ones.
image source from：https://www.npr.org/2025/06/05/nx-s1-5413364/concerns-over-conditions-in-u-s-immigration-detention-were-hearing-the-word-starving
