PLANTATION, Fla. — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently announced a search of at least 700 detention beds for detainees in South Florida, records show.

The search was for a “turnkey” detention facility within 50 driving miles of the Miami Field Office at 865 SW 78 Ave., in Plantation, records show.

According to a July 10 request for information by ICE, the contract needed to include housing, transportation, and health, guard, and food services for “male and female detainees” of low and medium “custody levels,” adding that “high” level was “preferred.”

The request also included at least 1,800 detention beds in the Philadelphia area, at least 1,500 in the Seattle area, and at least 1,500 in the Denver area.

Earlier this month, ICE detainees held at the Federal Detention Facility Miami, at 33 NE 4th St., in downtown, and their relatives told Local 10 News that they did not have air conditioning or access to drinking water.

A spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which oversees FDC Miami, told Local 10 News that there was a temporary AC malfunction, and inmates had access to bottles of water.

Some of the ICE detainees at FDC Miami reported they were transferred out of the South Florida Detention Facility, also known as the state-run Alligator Alcatraz, at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.

Detainees at Alligator Alcatraz had also complained of poor living conditions that included mosquitoes, broken air conditioning, sewage backups, food with maggots, and restricted access to legal counsel.

Local 10 News Assignment Editor Carson Merlo contributed to this report.

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Related link: ICE database of detention facilities

Location: Field office in Plantation

ICE looks into facility for at least 700 detainees in South Florida, records show

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