Arianne Betancourt’s father, Justo Betancourt, was released after months of detention in Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz immigration jail. His condition worsened over several days, with gaunt appearance, weight loss, hesitant movement, and slurred speech. By Sunday, he was in a Miami emergency room as doctors suspected mini strokes during detention and after release. Doctors could not perform an MRI because an electronic monitoring tag on his ankle prevented the scan. Betancourt’s family reported that guards responded to medical requests with advice to drink more water despite diabetes and insulin needs. The facility is scheduled to close next month after criticism, lawsuits, protests, political visits, and a 2025 Amnesty International report documenting abuse and rights violations.
"By Sunday, however, Justo Betancourt was in the emergency room, with doctors suspecting he had suffered a series of mini strokes, during his detention and since his release. They were unable to perform an MRI scan on his brain to confirm the diagnosis because of the electronic monitoring tag affixed to his ankle. If he had a headache, if he didn't feel good, if his glucose was high, they'd just tell him to drink more water, Arianne Betancourt said of his guards' reaction to her diabetic father's requests for medical help and his twice-daily insulin injections."
"It took three days for Arianne Betancourt's joy at the release of her father from months of detention in Florida's notorious so-called Alligator Alcatraz immigration jail to fully evaporate. At first, she was able to overlook his shockingly gaunt appearance and weight loss, hesitant movements and moments of slurred speech. The tonic of being back in her Miami apartment, she thought, would surely hasten his return to health. That was on Thursday. By Sunday, however, Justo Betancourt was in the emergency room."
"I'm furious at the condition he's in now. He's not the same person he was before they took him in there, and I don't know if he'll ever be the same. The detention center, hastily constructed last summer on a disused airstrip adjacent to fragile wetlands and Native American ancestral tribal lands in the mosquito-infested Florida Everglades, will close next month. It was condemned as a failed experiment in human suffering by critics, and still costs Florida taxpayers more than $1m a day."
"Its imminent shuttering follows lawsuits from environmental groups; protests from immigration advocates; unannounced visits by Democratic politicians who called conditions inside the facility inhumane; and a 2025 Amnesty International report highlighting commonplace physical abuse of detainees and human and legal rights violations."
#immigration-detention #medical-neglect #human-rights-abuses #florida-everglades #legal-action-and-closure
Read at www.theguardian.com
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