Florida detention center 'tent city' after being overwhelmed with immigrants: lawmaker

< South Florida’s U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson said she saw a “tent city” that could hold hundreds of people at the Miami immigration detention center on Thursday.

Following her visit to the Krome North Service Processing Center, Wilson told reporters she saw a structure that officials at the center told her had been built in 14 days to house hundreds of detained immigrants.

She referred to the structure as a tent city, but said the two-story building was made out of a harder material than cloth and that it had pipes for air conditioning.

“It’s going to get worse, so every time this facility gets crowded, in order to stay in compliance, they’re going to have to build another one, and it only takes 14 days,” Wilson said during a press conference following her visit to Krome.

“And so what they said to us was, as new detainees come in, they try to ship people out, but they can’t keep up with the pace because of the Laken Riley Act.”

The law Wilson mentioned requires immigration officials to detain immigrants arrested or charged with property crimes, among others.

More people could soon enter Krome following the launch this week of a large-scale operation to detain approximately 800 people in Florida in cooperation between federal authorities and state police, according to the Miami Herald.

Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami. (Photo courtesy of Alvaro Perpuly with U.S. Rep. Wilson’s office)

Democrat Wilson, who vowed to keep visiting the detention center, said she hasn’t seen overcrowding. However, she believes accounts of detainees, their families, and attorneys.

“This is not my first rodeo. I was down at Homestead when the children were there, and I’ve been to Krome before, and I’ve been to prisons all across Florida, especially female prisons,” Wilson said. “So, I know what they do. They take them on a field trip, so you won’t see who is actually in there, but they did admit that they are building a tent city.”

Miami-Dade Mayor Levine Cava wasn’t allowed to join the visit, Wilson said. Cava requested a tour of the detention center in an April 4 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Groups such as Americans for Immigrant Justice and the ACLU of Florida have called out conditions at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center, citing accounts of overcrowding, people sleeping on floors, poor sanitation, and two detainee deaths this year.

ICE did not respond to the Florida Phoenix’s questions about the structure and whether any detainees had been moved out of the center on Thursday.