Rigoberto Rodríguez Arce, the Cuban raftsman who claims to have been beaten while handcuffed inside the now-closed Alligator Alcatraz detention center, spoke publicly for the first time with reporter Olivia Jean from WINK Investigates, in an interview broadcast this Thursday.
Arce, 42 years old, arrived in the United States in 2007 after spending approximately two weeks at sea on a raft. "I came like any immigrant, fleeing from a dictatorship. My country is a dictatorship. I came on rafts. I spent about two weeks at sea," he stated.
The father of two children with U.S. citizenship worked as a cook in southwestern Florida before being arrested in December 2025 following a traffic stop in Immokalee for driving with a suspended license.
Since that arrest, he was transferred to Alligator Alcatraz, where in January 2026, he reportedly suffered a beating at the hands of two guards while being immobilized with handcuffs, a waist chain, and leg shackles.
"They started hitting me, they punched me in the face, they smashed my nose against the ground and kept on hitting," he described.
Arce claims that the guard Stephen Jordan Trejos grabbed him by the injured hand — he had two broken bones from a prior incident with another detainee — and lifted him off the bench where he was sitting. Then, according to his account, the guard Andre Seenaraine continued to beat him, assisted by a third officer. “They almost killed me. Three officers beat me while I was handcuffed, with my hands and feet immobilized,” he said.
The fear that the beating would not stop drove him to pretend to lose consciousness. "If I hadn't pretended to faint, they would have kept hitting me. Until I don't know what, until they left me dead there or whatever," he said.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) report, obtained by WINK Investigates, reviewed the surveillance recordings from the center and confirmed that Trejos delivered a punch to the side of Arce's head while he was being removed from the waiting area, and that Seenaraine struck him in the back of the head and threw two additional punches during the transfer.
The allegations of spitting and biting claimed by the management of the center to justify the actions of the guards were deemed "inconclusive" by the FDLE.
After the incident, Arce was sent to a detention center in Texas without having received the follow-up surgery that the doctors at Kendall Hospital in Miami had recommended to treat his hand fracture. His lawyer, Yaritssa Plasencia, noted that he arrived at that center "still covered in blood, with a bandaged hand and a black eye."
Arce says that the physical and psychological aftermaths prevent him from returning to his job as a cook. "I still have nightmares. Every time I remember those officers beating me, I wake up startled," he confessed.
Both former guards were arrested months later — Trejos in June and Seenaraine in August — and charged with misdemeanor battery in Collier County. The two posted a $1,000 bond and pleaded not guilty. Trejos' defense filed a motion to dismiss the charge, claiming self-defense, arguing that Arce had spit on him and that he responded with a single "striking action." Judge Deborah Cunningham rejected the prosecution's attempt to block that argument.
The case of Arce also illustrates the immigration limbo faced by thousands of Cubans in the United States: Cuba refused to accept him as a deportee, so he lives in Miami with an electronic ankle monitor, has to check in with authorities several times a month, and has applied for a work permit.
He cannot be expelled because the Cuban regime does not accept him, but he also does not have a definitive immigration status. Regarding his country of origin, he was emphatic: "My country is a dictatorship."
The case returns to the courts on November 18, when Trejos has a pre-trial conference scheduled, and a hearing on self-defense immunity is set for January 29, 2027.
El caso de Rigoberto es parte de un panorama migratorio en constante cambio. Sigue todas las novedades sobre detenciones, centros de detención y derechos de los inmigrantes en nuestra sección de
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