MIAMI — As hundreds of migrants crowded into the Krome Detention Center in Miami on the edge of the Florida Everglades, a palpable fear of an uprising set in among its staff.
As President Donald Trump sought to make good on his campaign pledge of mass arrests and removals of migrants, Krome, the United States' oldest immigration detention facility and one with a long history of abuse, saw its prisoner population recently swell to nearly three times its capacity of 600.
''There are 1700 people here at Krome!!!!,'' one U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee texted a co-worker last month, adding that even though it felt unsafe to walk around the facility nobody was willing to speak out.
That tension comes amid a battle in federal courts over whether the president's immigration crackdown has gone too far, too fast at the expense of fundamental rights.
At Krome, reports have poured in about a lack of water and food, unsanitary confinement and medical neglect. With the surge of complaints, the Trump administration shut down three Department of Homeland Security oversight offices charged with investigating such claims.
A copy of the text exchange was shared with The Associated Press by a federal employee on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Other documents include detainee complaints as well as an account of the arrival of 40 women at Krome, an all-male facility, in possible violation of a federal law to reduce the risk of prison rape.
Nationwide, detentions have surged to nearly 48,000 as of March 23, a 21% increase from the already elevated levels at the end of the Biden administration.
To address the shortage of capacity, ICE this month published a request for bids to operate detention centers for up to $45 billion as it seeks to expand to 100,000 beds from its current budget for about 41,000. As part of the build out, the federal government, for the first time, is looking to hold migrants on U.S. Army bases.
