President Donald Trump published a message on Truth Social on Sunday celebrating the release of Justo Betancourt, a 54-year-old Cuban resident of Miami who spent over six months detained at the controversial immigration center known as Alligator Alcatraz, in the Florida Everglades.
"Welcome home, Justo Betancourt, whose daughter, Arianne, tirelessly fought to free her father from Alcatraz prison. Enjoy your freedom together!" wrote Trump. The magnanimous tone and the use of Spanish were striking for a president who rarely acknowledges legal victories against his own administration regarding immigration matters.
Media outlets like The Independent have noted that the gesture could be motivated by the political calendar ahead of the midterm elections in November 2026, which may prompt Trump to soften his public image on immigration issues.
Betancourt, born in Cuba and a resident in the United States for over 36 years, was arrested on October 29, 2025 when he attended his annual routine appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), assuming it would be a formal procedure.
According to court documents, he was forced to sign a document in English that he did not understand, which was presented to him as an annual registration agreement when in reality it was a self-deportation.
He was moved between detention centers in Florida and Texas, sent to Mexico for self-deportation —a country that did not accept him and returned him— and finally held in Alligator Alcatraz for four and a half months.
On May 13, federal district judge Kyle Dudek granted a writ of habeas corpus, determining that the detention had been erroneous and ordering his release within 48 hours. Betancourt was released in the early morning of May 15 at the Krome North Processing Center in Miami.
His daughter Arianne Betancourt, 33, left her job as a tour guide to focus entirely on the campaign for her father's release, participating in weekly vigils in front of the center and traveling to protests in Chicago and Minneapolis.
The conditions in which Betancourt left the facility alarmed his family. According to Arianne, her father suffered a stroke during his detention, returned home unable to walk properly and with slurred speech, and his glucose levels were close to 500 even after receiving insulin.
"I am furious about the state they are in. They are not the same person they were before they were taken away, and I don't know if they will ever be that person again," Arianne stated.
Days after his release, Betancourt was hospitalized with suspected mini-strokes. Doctors were unable to confirm the diagnosis with an MRI because the electronic ankle monitor prevented it.
Arianne also reported that when her father requested insulin at the center —he suffers from type 2 diabetes and needs two doses a day— the guards would reply, "If he wanted insulin, he could get it in Mexico."
To cover the medical, rehabilitation, and housing expenses for her father, Arianne organized a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe that has raised over $18,600 of the $25,000 goal, with 447 donors.
Alligator Alcatraz, officially named South Florida Detention Facility, opened on July 3, 2025, in the Everglades with the support of Trump, then Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and Governor Ron DeSantis. The center, which operates with tents and metal mesh divisions, may be shut down in June, as DeSantis indicated, given that it costs the state of Florida approximately one million dollars a day.
"It is much worse than most people imagine. Individuals who do not receive food, who only know what it's like to be locked in a cage for months and then are abandoned in a country where they have no family or anything," Arianne Betancourt summarized.
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