‘Not How We Would Run a Facility’

The acting director of the Bureau of Prisons during part of President Donald Trump’s first term condemned the current administration’s newly constructed “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility in the Florida Evergreens.

“I’ve never been in an ICE detention facility, so I don’t really know what an ICE detention facility looks like,” Hugh Hurwitz told Mother Jones in a sweeping interview discussing the Trump administration’s border budget. “That’s not how we would run a Bureau of Prisons facility.”

From May 2018 through August 2019, Hurwitz oversaw 122 federal prison facilities, 12 contract facilities and more than 200 residential reentry centers. He managed approximately 36,000 staff members and around 177,000 inmates nationwide.

Hurwitz called the Trump administration’s $45 billion budget for expanding immigrant detention “astronomical” compared to the Bureau of Prisons’ annual $8 billion budget during his tenure.

The former Trump official also criticized the design of the newly opened tent facility, which was built at the direction of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and erected in just eight days before officially opening July 1. The state expects to spend $450 million to operate the facility over the next year and reportedly plans to seek reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Other members of the panel raised concerns about the facility’s layout, including the number of showers, toilets and wash basins available to detainees. Eunice Hyunhye Cho, an attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project, questioned the safety of the tent structure during Florida’s hurricane season and extreme summer heat, especially given its location deep in the swamp.

Lauren-Brooke Eisen, a senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice, condemned the facility in stark terms.

“They are talking about alligators and pythons guarding the perimeter of the facility. The cruelty and inhumanity here is pretty unprecedented,” Eisen told Mother Jones.