Congressional Rep. Wilson Tours Krome Detention Center

Congressional Representative Frederica Wilson (D-FL24) toured the Krome Detention Center in Miami, the oldest immigration detention facility in the USA, after receiving complaints about it for weeks.

Relatives of people detained there say conditions inside it are inhumane. A Ukrainian man became ill and died there in February. Protests prompted Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to ask for a tour. Wilson got the tour, exclusively, with cameras forbidden.

After the tour, she told a press conference that it seemed like it had been spruced up and staged for her.

“I wanted to see where were these dangerous people that they had picked up off the street and put them in a detention center? I didn’t see that. I saw hard working men.”

Agent at the center said a large structure had been built in just 14 days. It would take in more than 400 people as of Friday. They said they can build more. Wilson described it as a “tent city” but two stories high, with sides harder than cloth and pipes for air conditioning.

She said, “It’s going to get worse, so every time this facility gets crowded, in order to stay in compliance, they’re going to have to build another one, and it only takes 14 days. And so what they said to us was, as new detainees come in, they try to ship people out, but they can’t keep up with the pace because of the Laken Riley Act.”

Laken Riley requires detention of immigrants who are arrested or charged with property crimes and other offenses.

Wilson did not see nearly as many people as she anticipated. Video previously smuggled out of the facility showed extreme overcrowding, with people lying on the bare floor under rows of chairs on which other people were sitting. She did not witness anyone sleeping on the floor or visibly ill, and the place was clean.

However, she said, “I am positive that they took people out today so I wouldn’t see it. I went inside every place, I went in—but this is not my first rodeo. I was down at Homestead when the children were there, and I’ve been to Krome before, and I’ve been to prisons all across Florida, especially female prisons. So, I know what they do. They take them on a field trip, so you won’t see who is actually in there, but they did admit that they are building a tent city.”

As for cleanliness, she said, “Well it was like someone went in their yesterday and put on a whole new coat of fresh paint. You could even smell the paint.”

An ICE spokesperson said that was not true, and that overcrowding has been reduced by transferring people elsewhere, processing them faster and cooperation with local law enforcement.

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