Videos From ICE Detention Center Show Inhumane Conditions
Videos posted on TikTok by a migrant in the Krome detention center in Miami expose everything wrong with ICE confinement centers
Recently, several videos posted on TikTok showed the harrowing conditions in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Miami, Florida known as Krome. The videos highlight the overcrowded situation in many detention centers.
Krome is currently over capacity with more than 1700 detainees in a facility designed to house about 500 people. The migrant in the videos alleges that food and supply shortages are leaving the facility unable to meet the needs of the detainees.
The videos below, recorded while hiding under a table, show how overcrowded one holding cell is, with no beds and seating typically seen in a hospital waiting room. Men are seen sleeping on the floor with little if anything, such as pillows, blankets, or clean clothing. The videos raise many questions regarding whether the facility can handle the current population, which has exploded under the Trump administration.
So far, three people have died in ICE facilities this year. The most recent was a Ukrainian refugee who escaped Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and was granted protection until 2026 under the Biden administration. That protection was revoked under Trump and 44-year-old Maksym Chernayak was taken into custody by ICE and detained in the Krome facility.
On January 29, 45-year-old Serawit Gezahegn Dejene died in the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona and on January 23, 29-year-old Genry Ruiz Guillen died in the Krome Detention Center.
Below are the Spanish language videos, translations are provided by the author.
“Please, make this viral. This is happening right now in the Krom detention center in Miami, Florida. We have essentially been kidnapped. Some people have been here for more than 30 days and have not been processed. Please make this viral and help us. Constant a commission on human rights and news media. This is not a joke, this is serious. Please help us. This is in Krome in Miami, Florida. Please help us. Claudia Sheinbaum, I know you will see this. There are many, many Mexicans here suffering discrimination with our Venezuelan brothers and Guatemalan brothers. Help us, help us, please. They won't let us make phone calls and won't let us do anything. This isn’t just my testimony, you will hear many more testimonies. Please make this viral. Help us, please. SOS”
“Please, my people, make this go viral. We are in the Krome detention center in Miami. Florida. We have been kidnapped. We are in the process of deportation but have been here more than 20 days, some have been here longer than 30 days and we can’t communicate with anyone. Please help us. Please share these videos. Claudia Sheinbaum, if you see this, please support us. There are dozens of Mexicans here sleeping on the floor. Please, share this, share this. Help us.”
“Please, share this video. This isn’t a joke. We are in a situation that is serious and worrisome. We have been kidnapped. There are people here who are sick and they don’t give us medical attention. We know we are risking a lot, me by showing my face. Please. Share this on social media. This isn’t a joke and this isn’t just some story. We don’t want likes or views. We want people to help us. Right now there are 1,300 of us in this ICE detention center. Please help us.”
The Krome detention center has a long history of abuse and neglect. The abuses grew once the facility was privatized in 2008. Nine Black immigrants filed civil rights complaints in 2021 with the Biden administration and spoke out against a worrisome practice of anti-Black racism and abuse.
The Eloy Detention Center in Arizona is notorious for being among the deadliest detention centers in the U.S. At least 16 people have died there. Five were suicides. Opened has been operational since 1994 and can detain more than 1,500 people.
I contacted ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, about this story over the weekend and have not received a response from them. Videos were downloaded and used for this article to preserve them for posterity.
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Deaths in custody lacking due process is white democracy’s enlightenment, i.e. apartheid, to create a future of marginalized, exploited, and warehoused populations, the braceros of today, destined for migrant prisons in the new Jim Crow that like Gaza can be eradicated when stateless.