Congressman seeks shutdown of Baker County ICE center

A Central Florida lawmaker is demanding that a federal immigration facility in the Baker County Detention Center be shut down due to what he called horrible conditions “that no human should live in.”

With President-elect Donald Trump promising to order mass deportations of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission, Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Orlando, said what he saw during a surprise visit to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Macclenny “shows us what will probably happen” if those people are held in similar places before deportation.

A Democrat representing the 10th District in Central Florida, and a House Oversight Committee member, Frost made the demand during an Instagram video call on Monday with the ACLU of Florida. He said people “should be very concerned” about what is happening at the Baker County facility to detainees who are not “serving a sentence,” but are waiting for immigration issues to be handled.

“What I saw was horrible. I saw conditions that no human should have to live in,” Frost said. “We are talking about the medical unit. The problem here too is a lot of that medical unit is being used to house people, or being used as a solitary confinement. … Do what’s right — shut down this facility.”

In a Facebook post published Monday, Baker County Sheriff Scotty Rhoden defended his facility, adding that he could say no more.

“There is an ongoing civil case that I cannot discuss at this time, as is standard practice and under the advice of my attorneys. I will provide a response once the civil case is resolved, as that will be the appropriate time to do so,” Rhoden said. “I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to our dedicated Detention staff. They do an outstanding job.”

Illegal immigrants arrested by federal or local law enforcement in Northeast Florida are housed at the county jail in Macclenny during investigations and deportation procedures. The facility is one of dozens that ICE operates across the country in city and county jails. Others exist in Miami, Pompano Beach and Moore Haven.

Baker County’s center is made up of two buildings, one for detainees’ living quarters, the other for office and support services, ICE’s website says. The compound is surrounded by a 12-foot-tall fence topped by razor ribbon. Unarmed officers patrol the area.

The agency’s website’s states that each detention facility operates under one of several sets of ICE national detention standards, whether that facility is owned and operated by the agency, a state or local entity or a contractor.

The website states that ICE has “a robust and multilevel oversight and compliance program” that includes on-site inspections. The last inspection of Baker County’s facility, which opened in 2009 under a federal contract, is dated May 5, 2022, and says it “meets standards.”

Frost was joined in his video by ACLU of Florida civil rights attorney Amy Godshall and Meredith Al-Rekabi, whose husband was detained at Baker for 16 months.

Godshall said that ACLU of Florida has been working with other advocacy organizations over the past two years. The activities include a hotline for people who have complaints about the Baker County facility, including those who have been incarcerated there.

“We have received hundreds of complaints from people at Baker, egregious complaints,” Godshall said. “I have been on several hotline calls, and you can hear the desperation in their voices about what they are experiencing. It is beyond inhumane — they are treated like animals or worse in some situations. It is supposed to be civil detention. … They are not there to serve a criminal sentence.”

Frost said he saw tattered towels, “really disgusting” pools of water in cells, and thin pieces of foam used for bedding that he “can’t even call it a mattress.” It was just a “horrible, horrible way” for someone to live, Frost said.

Some of those he spoke to said they felt they would be better off at another ICE facility or even sent back to their home country, he said.

“They feel like they can fare better for themselves on the streets of Haiti right now, being dropped off on the streets with no money versus being in Baker,” Frost said. “This is not the correct manner for inmates, for detainees, for humans. No one should have to live like that.”

If mass deportations do occur in 2025, as the new administration promises, those people could end up in facilities like Baker County’s.

“That is part of the reason why I am passionate about making sure that we end this contract because the folks there are not doing the job that’s prescribed; it is not becoming of a federal facility,” Frost said. “We just need to shut down Baker.”

The congressman’s call is the latest in a series of concerns issued by the ACLU and other civil rights groups about conditions at the Baker County jail’s immigration facilities.

Just a week ago, attorneys representing a medical practitioner and a woman filed a whistleblower disclosure and a civil rights complaint alleging human rights violations at the Baker County Detention Center. The whistleblower, who once worked at Baker, documented what is called systemic neglect that included staff denying basic medical care, falsifying records and subjecting detained detainees to racial and sexual harassment.

 “These aren’t isolated incidents,” whistleblower attorney Andrea Meza said in a news release. “They’re features of a system that prioritizes profit over human dignity.”

The ACLU of Florida also filed an administrative complaint against the Department of Homeland Security, ICE Health Services Corps and the Baker County Sheriff’s Office in September 2023. It said men and women detained at the Baker County facility are victims of “systemic and ongoing medical neglect” and should be released.

That year-old complaint also urged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to recommend “immediate and permanent termination” of the government agreement that allows Baker County to operate as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

In 2022, 16 civil rights groups filed a federal complaint against Homeland Security and ICE, alleging “abhorrent conditions,” abuse, medical neglect and racial harassment. The ACLU also filed a lawsuit in December 2022 saying that ICE and Baker County have violated detainees’ rights of free speech by denying them access to counsel.