July 12: Media Availability w/ Maxwell Frost

So I was just in a press availability, as it’s called, with Rep Maxwell Frost (FL-10), who just left the Everglades concentration camp. He was there with Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-25)

I learned a lot. He’s gonna be sharing a lot, but I wanna share some of the highlights with you:

1. He was in the facility for about two hours.

2. They did clean it up before he arrived. Some detainees said that they got their first shower since they’ve been there, last night and, the food was a little better. That said, the conditions were despicable, so you can just imagine how bad they are when a congress member is not showing up, which is one of the big reasons that members of Congress need to keep showing up at these facilities. The more they show up, the better the conditions.

3. He wasn’t allowed into the tent with the cages, but he was allowed to see inside it. Each cage held 32 people. There were three toilets and they were drinking water from a spigot connected to the toilet. Though, in the dining hall, they are drinking water from a jug. There were also three phones, but they turned them on and off at will, and there’s no set time for the lights in the facility to be on or off.

4. As of now, there are approximately 1,000 people. The goal is to have 4,000 beds by August, with an additional 1,000 beds to be added within the next week.

5. The facility is for males over the age of 15. Some have civil offenses, some are violent criminals, and there is a wristband system based on offenses, but they are not separated.

6. Maxwell saw mostly third-party police people; he saw very few people who were federal ICE or even state agents, but ICE does control the facility.

7. He wasn’t allowed into the medical area, the staff said it was because of HIPAA, and that’s a lie because he has been allowed into medical areas before his theory, as if the medical unit is being used as an isolation unit.

8. He also wasn’t allowed in to see the toilets, and they said it was “to keep him safe, “ but he’s heard reports of backed up toilets and feces sprayed everywhere.

9. If there is a storm, they say that they will bus everyone out. And if the building is destroyed, so be it, which tells you how much they care about taxpayer money. Keep in mind. This facility was supposed to become an airport for freight planes, but the conditions were so bad that those plans were scrapped.

10. The mosquitoes and whatever other bugs are horrific, even the staff complain that they get bitten up all the time.

11. They say the state politicians are not allowed because this is federal, but the facility itself is state, so that really shouldn’t be happening.

12. ICE is in charge of everything. For anything he asked, the response was “This is what ICE told us to do.”

13. The state is running this using the same office and staff who are supposed to help during hurricanes.

14. Frost came with a binder of questions and names of constituents, but he was denied the ability to speak to any detainee. The staff told him he could meet them if he gave notice, which he believes is a lie

15. Frost says he will be back at a date and time of his own choosing.

16. He is going to speak with Oversight Ranking Member Rep Robert Garcia (CA-42) to figure out how to use shadow hearings to shine a light on these issues and the facilities

17. They are not yet sure if they’re going to be trying to change things through amendments or through legislation.

18. No one is staying there longer than two weeks, and this is another way we know this is a federal facility, even though they insist that it’s state in order to control when members of Congress can show up. If it were a state facility, they could only be there for a couple of days

19. He tried to get answers about whether they’re asking what happens if someone mentally can’t handle general population, and they couldn’t answer that.

20. This costs an exorbitant amount of money so far, 450 million for the facility, which is definitely gonna go up. They said there’s some sort of federal reimbursement, but Frost is skeptical. It cost so much because they had to pave the roads and build the entire thing in under a week.

21. When he was looking in the cages, he saw people drenched in sweat, and people were screaming “help me!” “I’m a US citizen“ and chanting “libertat” (which means freedom.)

Frost just kept saying his heart was broken.

I’m sure Frost is gonna cover most of this himself in various interviews and social media posts, but I wanted to share with you what he told us as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions, I will try to answer them. There are some things I probably forgot to mention so I might be able to answer questions

Let’s make sure to use our voices to spread this information. It’s truly an abomination.