OCHOPEE, Fla. (WSVN) — Dozens of people of different faiths gathered at the Florida Everglades this weekend not to protest, but to pray for change.
7News cameras captured participants in Sunday’s interfaith prayer vigil outside the gates of the immigrant detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” united in their call for compassion and change.
“Enough, enough!” they chanted.
Faith leaders traveled to the event in Ochopee from across the state because they want to be a source of hope for the detainees.
“Just to let it be known that we’re here, and we want them to know they’re not forgotten, and they are loved and remembered,” said the Rev. Arthur Jones III with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fort Myers.
The detention facility, built in eight days over 10 square miles in the heart of the Everglades, faces sharp condemnation over, not just environmental impacts, but the its conditions, which critics describe as deplorable.
“The conditions in this facility are atrocious. We have heard of people having to clean the toilets out of fecal matter with their bare hands because there’s not enough water pressure. We’ve heard that there’s not enough water, period,” said Thomas Kennedy with the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
Officials with the Florida Immigrant Coalition said some detainees are now refusing to eat in protest.
These stories are moving Floridians to action.
“Tired of sitting on the couch doing nothing, desperate to do something to help,” said an attendee at the vigil who odentified herself as Catherine.
Some hope to help by taking their prayers inside “Alligator Alcatraz.”
“Just to have people come in and pray with them, and to help them observe their faith,” said Jones.
After months of trying, the Archdiocese of Miami has been granted access and is now allowed to provide ministry and Mass to detainees and workers at the detention center. The first Mass was held Saturday.
As for Sunday’s group, their goal is to shut the place down.
“The point of this is to grow the moral witness of ordinary Americans who say, ‘Enough, we are not going to let this continue, we are stopping it here,’” said Noelle Damico, the Director of Social Justice at the Workers Circle.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republicans have defended the center and its conditions, saying it’s part of the state’s push to support the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Organizers said this is the first of what will be weekly prayer vigils outside “Alligator Alcatraz.”