MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Krome Detention Center staffers gave U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, a tour of the facility on Thursday.
The tour comes after Local 10 News reported in March on a viral video highlighting conditions within the center, located in west Miami-Dade County.
“This is a facility that was built to a capacity for 882 and they currently hold 1,111 detainees,” said Wasserman Schultz. “So they have over 300 too many people in the capacity of the facility. As a result, they have people who are being held and are forced to sleep on cots in between the bunks.”
The Krome facility is where Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds illegal immigrants. It is America’s oldest immigration detention center, built in the 1970’s on the edge of the Everglades.
Wasserman-Schultz’s office announced she arrived without giving the facility prior notice for a tour and to observe conditions inside.
In March, an immigration attorney told Local 10 News that the facility has about 500 bed spaces and believes up to 1,800 people are housed there at a time.
It comes as President Donald Trump is keeping his word to conduct large-scale deportations across the country.
Wasserman Schultz said more than half of the facility’s population are criminals.
“This is about 60% of people who have had some criminal history and 40% who have not,” she said. “I asked why there are so many here. The goal is to be housing criminals and deporting criminals, and the answer was vague.”
Her biggest concern were intake cells that were crowded. It is where detainees are held until they are moved to other parts of the facility.
“The two constituents I spoke to definitely described conditions that were extremely unpleasant, not conditions that you would want anyone you care about to be subjected to,” she said.
She said she was told the average stay is 60 days.