(RNS) — As Florida defends a state law that would criminalize undocumented immigrants entering the state, the South Florida Detention Center, known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” long criticized for inhumane conditions, remains open after its expected closure. On Wednesday (Oct. 28), two Catholic leaders who provide pastoral care in immigration detention centers condemned the facility and called for reform.
“The deportation is deliberately harsh,” said Donald Kerwin, vice president for advocacy at Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, during a webinar his organization held with Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski. “People are being sent back to dangerous places. The detention conditions are horrid, and they’re almost jubilant about those conditions.”
JRS/USA is one of the few faith-based groups federally contracted to provide chaplains in immigrant detention facilities, serving five locations in four states, including Florida. With that connection, Kerwin’s remarks about the conditions were surprisingly revealing.
Wenski, a longtime critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, continues to be the only archbishop in the nation allowed to provide a consistent flow of priests inside immigrant detention facilities in Florida to celebrate weekly Mass and hear confessions.
“There’s a little over about 100 people that come to the Mass,” Wenski told RNS. “Sometimes more, sometimes less. The population of the camp changes.”
Since early Augu …