A report fromthe Miami Herald published on Friday concludes that the so-called "sun cages" of the now-closed Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention center likely violated the United States Constitution and international law, according to experts connected to the UN consulted by the publication.
The report provides a new angle on the report published by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security on September 11, which documented the use of metal structures measuring only about 1.5 square meters in size where 79 men were confined between July 2025 and January 2026, in some cases handcuffed and without food or water for up to 15 hours.
Tommy Lam Rodríguez, a 50-year-old Cuban, is one of the central testimonies in the report: he told the Herald that he was confined for two hours in one of those cages because he didn't finish his breakfast on time, something he attributes to his hypoglycemia and missing teeth.
Las condiciones de detención en centros migratorios como Alligator Alcatraz siguen generando debate. Sigue toda la actualidad sobre para mantenerte informado sobre este y otros casos que afectan a la comunidad cubana y latina.
Juan E. Méndez, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and a survivor of torture in Argentina, was emphatic: “Locking someone in a sort of booth or telephone cabin for any number of hours is generally used in truly dictatorial regimes to break a detainee's resistance, to force them to confess to crimes, or simply as punishment, purely out of cruelty. But one would not expect it to be used in countries with reasonable standards of the rule of law.”
Jorge Contesse, a professor at the Rutgers Law School and a member of the UN Committee Against Torture, pointed out that if confinement is used as punishment for bad behavior, "it could constitute torture under international law."
Alice Edwards, who held the position of UN Special Rapporteur on Torture until July 2026, emphasized that "there is no rational reason for a facility to have cages of this small size" and that those detained for immigration reasons should not be subjected to criminal incarceration standards.
Sam Lester, an attorney for the ACLU of Florida, was more direct: "These things are equivalent to medieval torture devices. They are torture chambers. There is no precedent for ICE detentions."
The office of Governor Ron DeSantis not only confirmed the use of cages, but its communications director, Alex Lanfranconi, stated: “While it meets all federal standards for criminal confinement, we would make it even smaller if we could.”
The case has a distinctly Cuban angle. Raúl Suárez Herrero, 59 years old, reported having spent over 15 hours in one of those cages —from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. the following day— without food, without being able to lie down, and with mosquitoes. Previously, two former guards of the facility were criminally charged with assaulting the Cuban Rigoberto Rodríguez Arce, 42 years old, during a protest over a lack of water and food.
Alligator Alcatraz, inaugurated in July 2025 at an old airfield in the Everglades constructed in just eight days, permanently closed on June 25, 2026 under pressure from humanitarian organizations, after having housed around 22,000 people and having cost more than 1.2 billion dollars.
The candidate for Attorney General of Florida José Javier Rodríguez has already called for a full investigation into the center regarding detention conditions and the possible misuse of public funds, while Contesse warned that situations like this "challenge" the historical position of the United States as an international reference in human rights.
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