A Florida congresswoman criticized conditions inside the Krome Detention Center after showing up to the facility unannounced for a tour.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz spoke to 7News about her tour Thursday of the facility in Southwest Miami-Dade, where two detainees have died since the beginning of the year.
“There are a lot of troubling things about the Krome Detention Center; I want to make that very clear,” Schultz said.
The Democratic lawmaker’s visit to the detention center was unplanned, something that has never been done before.
While she didn’t see any mistreatment of detainees, Wasserman Schulrz said, the conditions inside were awful.
According to people she spoke with inside the facility, the congresswoman said, dozens of men were crammed into nine-by-nine intake rooms where they would be held for anywhere between 12 and 48 hours.
“They are there in those rooms with all of those other men, eating, sleeping and going to the bathroom, in that room, it’s that small, sleeping on the floor, having to urinate and defecate in front of other people in that small room,” Wasserman Schultz said.
The lawmaker said she’s also worried because the facility is over capacity.
“This is a facility that was built to capacity for 882, and they currently hold 1,111 detainees,” she said.
Cellphone video allegedly recorded by a detainee from March shows what appears to be the overcrowded interior of the holding center.
Speaking in Spanish, the detainee claims the living conditions and treatment of migrants are inhumane, and he pleaded for help.
With that many people detained, Wasserman Schultz is concerned people will slip through the cracks and miss their court dates.
“Trump keeps saying that he’s only going to go after the worst of the worst. You don’t have the worst here. They said about 60% have committed crimes and 40% who have not,” she said.
The congresswoman’s unexpected visit comes shortly after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a sweeping spending bill, which President Donald Trump has referred to as his “big beautiful bill,” which includes more funding for immigration enforcement.
“What the Trump administration’s plans are with the $45 million that they put into the big, ugly bill that was rammed through last week in the middle of the night by one vote, is going to attempt to ramp up and process even more, many, many more detainees,” Wasserman Schultz said. “When they do that, and you start to fill up even more facilities like Krome, conditions are going to get decidedly worse.”
The congresswoman said she was also able to privately speak with two of her constituents about their immigration status and plans to make another visit to the facility soon.