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President Donald Trump posted a message on Truth Social on Sunday celebrating the release of Justo Betancourt, a 54-year-old Cuban resident of Miami who spent more than six months detained in 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 use of Spanish were striking for a president who rarely acknowledges judicial victories against his own administration on immigration matters.
Media outlets like The Independent noted that the gesture might be motivated by the political calendar ahead of the midterm elections in November 2026, which could lead Trump to soften his public image on immigration issues.
Betancourt, born in Cuba and a resident of the United States for over 36 years, was arrested on October 29, 2025 when he attended his routine annual appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), assuming it would be a formal procedure.
According to court documents, he was made to sign a document in English that he did not understand, presented to him as an annual registration agreement when in fact it was a self-deportation.
He was transferred between detention centers in Florida and Texas, sent to Mexico to carry out self-deportation —a country that did not accept him and sent him back— and finally incarcerated in Alligator Alcatraz for four and a half months.
On May 13, U.S. 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, quit her job as a tour guide to fully dedicate herself to the campaign for her father's release, participating in weekly vigils outside the center and traveling to protests in Chicago and Minneapolis.
The conditions under 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 around 500 even after receiving insulin.
"I'm furious about the state they are in. They are not the same person they were before they took them 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 daily doses—the guards responded, "If you want insulin, you can 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 requested, with 447 donors.
Alligator Alcatraz, officially known as 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 partitions, could be closed in June, as DeSantis indicated, given that it costs the state of Florida approximately one million dollars a day.
"It's much worse than most people imagine. There are individuals who don't receive food, who only know what it's like to be locked in a cage for months, and then they are abandoned in a country where they have no family or anything," summarized Arianne Betancourt.
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