Module three on the first floor of the Krome detention center resembles an emergency room. An elderly man in a wheelchair had to urinate beside his bed in the early morning hours because there was no one to help him get to the bathroom. As soon as dawn broke, he apologized to the other detainees. A man undergoing dialysis for his chronic kidney condition was heard shouting that he wanted to hang himself. Another one who has lung cancer had to be taken to the emergency room. People are walking around with congestion, colds and the flu. Ariel Barrero, a 56-year-old Cuban who has been in there for almost six months, is heartbroken from so much anguish.
For days he had been sleeping on the cold, damp cement floor of the center located on the edge of the Everglades, about 22 miles (35 km) from Miami, far from the city’s eyes. On June 24, Barrero was locked in a cell with more than 50 other people, without hot food or access to showers. He barely slept; his bones ached. He stood up, felt a pain in his chest, and his mouth twitched. His heart couldn’t take it. “I got so stressed that I had my first heart attack,” Barrero recounts in a phone call.
The other detainees, people like him in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), began yelling at the guards to please come quickly. They took him to HCA Florida Kendall Hospital, the facility responsible for treating migrants with urgent medical needs, located more than 18 miles (30 km) from Krome. They performed a catheterization, confirmed he had a blocked artery, and placed a stent to improve blood flow to his heart. Two days later, he was back in his cell.
A dozen migrants detained at Krome — and some of their relatives — described deplorable conditions to EL PAÍS, through several phone calls made over the course of a week: a lack of medical attention, ill-treatment by guards, disregard for their ailments, delays in accessing a doctor, and the use of standardized medications. Currently, at least five people are suffering from conjunctivitis in that same module, which currently houses about 80 people, although more than 130 have been sleeping crammed together on bunk beds and cots. The number of detainees this year has been three times greater than the center’s operational capacity, which is normally equipped with around 600 beds.
Barrero had left his home in Fort Lauderdale to go to work in Miami on June 22 when a car rear-ended his in the middle of downtown. He called 911 for help. When police officers arrived and saw that he didn’t have his documents in order, they arrested him. The 287(g) agreements, signed with the federal government, allow local law enforcement in Florida to work closely with ICE, which is why arrests in the state are now happening on the side of the road.
After 30 years in the United States, that was the first of Barrero’s many nights at Krome, the country’s oldest immigration detention center, built in the 1960s as an air defense base during the Cold War, and which these days is associated with a long list of abuses and bad practices.
A few weeks after the first heart attack, he had a second one. At 10:30 p.m. on July 4, Barrero’s heart rate climbed to 250 beats per minute. He had to undergo surgery. He doesn’t know exactly how much longer his heart can hold out. “This is a concentration camp; there’s no humanity here,” he says.
“There are many sick people in here, people who can’t take care of themselves; there’s no distinction made for anyone. There are those who can’t get out of bed, those who can’t bathe, and we have to help them.” He says that sometimes, to pick up the medicine they have requested, they have to walk through several blocks in the cold or the rain. Finally, they are prescribed some generic medication, mostly Tylenol, heavily demonized by Donald Trump, but the most commonly used pill in detention centers to medicate migrants for any ailment.
“Here, you complain of a headache and they give you Tylenol. You have a fever, Tylenol. A sore throat, Tylenol. They treat everything like that. People have had to be taken to the hospital in serious condition because they were given the wrong medicine,” says Alberto García, a 60-year-old Cuban permanent resident, speaking from Krome. He had previously spent three days in jail for marijuana use. He was arrested a little over a month ago at Miami Airport after returning from a trip to Cuba.
“They haven’t even given me medicine. My eyes have been red for four days. Here, one person infects another, and another; we’re in a chicken coop,” says David Dorantes, a 47-year-old Mexican man who contracted conjunctivitis. “The treatment has been the worst; I never thought I would go through something like this.”
The Krome detention center has been the focus of numerous complaints regarding violations of medical standards. Detainees there have reported being denied treatment for kidney disease, asthma, and diabetes. Since Trump returned to the White House in January, at least five people who passed through Krome have died in ICE custody. Amnesty International stated in a recent report that “Krome’s extreme overcrowding, medical neglect, and reports of humiliating and degrading treatment paint a picture of harrowing human rights violations.”
“They are killing him slowly”
It was Thanksgiving Day, November 27, and the Krome officers were unavailable to Denis Cabrera Rodríguez, a 33-year-old Cuban artist and political activist. His speech was slurred, his blood sugar out of control. He’s been diabetic since he was 10, and has spent most of his life monitoring his blood glucose and administering insulin. He tried to ask for help, but no one paid any attention. He was on the verge of collapse when his partner, Olga Soto, called the detention center.
“The person who helped me said, ‘Well, I can file the report, but they won’t see it until Thanksgiving Monday,’” Soto recounts. She couldn’t wait and called 911. Today, she keeps a police report that reflects how Krome authorities denied the police access to their premises.
Time has passed, and Rodríguez’s body continues to get weaker. He was detained in late November, and the day authorities took him to the immigration offices in Miramar, they had to urgently locate a nearby medical center. The young man ended up hospitalized with a blood potassium level of over 7 mmol/L, when the normal range is around 3. “His blood sugar was out of control. He was at risk of a heart attack,” says his partner.
Even so, he was transferred to Krome, where he frequently experiences shortness of breath, has a blood sugar level of nearly 400 milligrams per deciliter, is not guaranteed the diet he requires, and has been placed in a second-floor module, despite having been instructed not to climb stairs due to his heart problems.
“He doesn’t have an insulin pump. He has to eat several times a day to avoid blood sugar spikes. Denis measures his carbohydrate intake, but they don’t respect his diet at all. They’re killing him slowly; as long as he doesn’t measure his food, his blood sugar, and his insulin, he’s going to live with constant hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, and that’s where the risks of dialysis, potassium depletion, and all the symptoms he’s already experiencing come from,” Soto insists.
The last time she visited him, she saw how red Rodríguez’s eyes were. Because of his condition, which has affected his vision, he needs to wear glasses, which aren’t allowed at the center. “Denis has been enduring this for so long. During all this time, he caught a cold, and he has wounds on his feet that take months to heal. They haven’t done a potassium test or an electrocardiogram on him since. He tells me he asked for help, but they’re ignoring him, and his body can’t take it anymore.”
Depression, dizziness and untreated wounds
The Krome facility — which, according to the latest published information, is operated by Akima Global Services, LLC, a private company that provides services to ICE under a $685 million contract — is governed by medical standards established by ICE itself. These include a medical evaluation and physical exam upon arrival, access to basic medical care and emergency services, a “sick call” system for medical requests, and mental health assistance. Despite the fact that Juan Girón, a 31-year-old Nicaraguan, has told psychiatrists that he wants to die since his arrest in July, his transfer to Alligator Alcatraz, and then to Krome, no one seems to take him seriously. He suffered from toothache for several days without receiving medication. “I told them I wanted to die, and they just noted that I had attempted suicide. The psychologist keeps asking me when the court hearing is. Everything that’s happening here is a complete abuse.”
There are days when Girón can barely sleep because of the nightmares. The hard life in Nicaragua and his confinement in the United States have left an indescribable mark on him. “I have to be medicated, constantly asking for pills for anxiety, for sleep,” he says. “I’ve suffered from severe depression; I feel like life is worthless, that it has no meaning.” It was only recently that they began to guarantee the anti-anxiety medication he needs.
On the other end of the phone, José Zambrano, a 40-year-old Cuban, says the headaches are driving him crazy. Last year, after a motorcycle accident, he was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, a potentially fatal condition. There are days when he loses his memory and doesn’t even remember who he is: not his name, not where he came from, much less that he’s an immigrant with I-220A status, a supervised release permit granted after crossing the border. Nine months ago, he was stopped on the highway because, according to the officer, they could barely see his license plate.
“I get a lot of headaches and frequent dizzy spells, and I have to keep complaining to get my medication,” says Zambrano, who has been at Krome for more than eight months. He also says that if he registers to see the doctor, no one attends to him. “Twice I’ve fallen, lost consciousness, and had to be taken to the hospital.” At Kendall, the doctor told him that sooner or later he will have to undergo surgery.
The first year of Donald Trump’s administration is almost over, a year in which more than 66,000 migrants have been detained. In Krome, people continue to survive any way they can. Some, who have requested voluntary deportation, have been waiting for months without a response. They also lack access to bail. The food they are given is meager and bland. Everyone wonders when the nightmare will end.
Rizer Atencio Chirino, 46, who arrived from Venezuela last year, coughs up blood almost daily from a gunshot wound he received in his home country. The bullet is still lodged in his trachea. “Blood is coming out, and they don’t know what’s wrong with me. They can’t operate because the bullet is in between my arteries,” he says. “Even so, I call them, and the guards don’t pay any attention. This government has me locked up here like an animal.”
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