Overcrowding and Dysfunction Produced a Quiet Riot at a Miami Federal Prison Holding ICE Detainees

Half the elevators at Federal Detention Center Miami are broken. Immigrant detainees are kept on lockdown, and lawyers can barely reach their clients.

Immigration lawyers and correctional officers say an influx of hundreds of immigrant detainees at a federal prison in Miami has thrown the facility into disarray, leading to a detainee revolt in April that was put down with force.

The details of that April 15 disturbance—in which detainees flooded a floor of the prison and correctional officers responded with concussive flashbang grenades—have not been previously reported outside of a few sparse details in one local news story, and they show the strain that President Donald Trump's mass deportation has put on an already distressed federal prison.

Federal Detention Center Miami, a Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facility, is now holding roughly 400 people detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for alleged immigration violations. At the same time, four of the eight elevators that staff rely on to navigate the multi-story tower are broken. 

The overcrowding, intake and processing headaches, and broken elevators have led to extended lockdowns and loss of detainees' ability to communicate with their families; lack of legal access for immigration lawyers and their clients; and medical and legal records being lost in the shuffle between ICE and BOP custody. The latter is particularly troubling because it can cause potentially life-threatening interruptions in medication schedules and breakdowns in the chain of custody—the record that establishes the legal history of a person's incarceration.

"I've been at FDC Miami for 16 years," Kenny Castillo, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 501, the union representing Bureau of Prisons employees at the lockup tells Reason. "I've never seen the building like I see it right now."

The federal prison system has been struggling for years with chronic understaffing and crumbling facilities, but Castillo says the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, combined with mismanagement and broken elevators, has pushed the conditions at FDC Miami into dangerous and unprecedented territory.

ICE stopped releasing public information on the number of detainees being held in various federal facilities, citing safety and security concerns, but Castillo says FDC Miami is currently holding around 400 of them on two floors of the facility.

Many of those detainees are being transferred from the Krome Detention Center, an ICE facility that's been dogged by overcrowding, reports of inhumane conditions, and deaths.

"They're showing up at our doors sick and they're getting the staff sick because I don't know what kind of care they're receiving down in Krome," Castillo says. (FDC Miami confirmed a case of tuberculosis on May 3.)

However, FDC Miami did not receive any more staff in the receiving and discharge department to handle the churn of transfers between it and the Krome. Additionally, the broken elevators have caused frequent lockdowns, which prevent inmates and detainees from having regular access to phone and computer systems.

"We use those elevators to move inmates, to respond to body alarms, to come to the aid of officers and the inmates when there is a fight or other disturbance, to provide medical assistance," Castillo says. "This is not like a compound where you can run across and respond to a body alarm or to a medical emergency. The elevator is the heart of the building."

If that's the case, then FDC Miami is on the verge of cardiac arrest. Three of the four broken elevators, Castillo says, have been that way for more than two years. 

Castillo shared with Reason an email he sent to Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D–Texas) on May 16 asking for assistance. "I have raised these concerns with management, but have been told that the Bureau of Prisons lacks the $8 million required to overhaul the elevator system," he wrote.

A BOP spokesperson said in response to a request for comment that FDC Miami "has requested additional funding to address elevator repairs and is awaiting funding to address identified elevator deficiencies."

The conditions are not only dangerous; they implicate the constitutional rights of those incarcerated there.

Evelyn Wiese, an attorney with Americans for Immigrant Justice (AIJ), a nonprofit law firm, says she's been "working closely with immigration attorneys from AIJ and other local nonprofits that have encountered major delays in sending and receiving mail to FDC Miami, as well as delays scheduling phone calls for folks who have upcoming proceedings."

"We have also heard from our clients that they have faced serious impediments to being able to place calls, both to talk to counsel that they already have and also to seek counsel, in part due to lockdowns at FDC Miami," Wiese says. "And it's my understanding that legal service providers' phone numbers are not being posted at the facility to enable folks to seek attorneys when they're detained at FDC Miami."

Katie Blankenship, an attorney with Sanctuary of the South, which provides immigration and civil rights legal assistance, says she can rarely schedule a phone or video call with clients there, making it nearly impossible to plan their legal strategies.

"I had a hearing this morning, and the judge ordered me to speak with [my client]," Blankenship tells Reason. "I couldn't be at FDC, and they wouldn't get me on the phone with him. I had to go to court this morning and be like, 'Sorry judge, no, I did not speak to my client, because I couldn't.'"

And when Blankenship manages to travel to FDC Miami for an in-person visit, she says she frequently finds that her clients have been placed in the Special Housing Unit (SHU), the BOP term of art for solitary confinement.

"I could never get an answer to why my clients are being sent to the SHU, and the SHU is an exceptionally hard place to see people," Blankenship says. "They don't even allow you to pass documents. There's literally no way to even get a signature on something. You can't hear each other. It's just an awful situation. That's just for legal representation, not for what the people inside are going through."

Lack of timely access to legal counsel and family can have profound consequences in federal immigration court, where there's an emphasis on expediency.

"Immigration cases, particularly detained immigration cases, can move quickly in court," Wiese says, "and being effectively put in a black hole where you have limited communication to attorneys and family members makes it almost impossible to hope to succeed in demonstrating a case for immigration relief in the United States, even when you may be legally entitled to protections or relief."

"It does," Castillo says when asked if the problems at FDC Miami affect detainees' access to legal counsel. "They're not doing due process for these people, but it does affect the inmate population because we're on modified operations."

The problems go deeper. The BOP and ICE systems for tracking persons are completely different which makes it hard to find detainees. A BOP inmate has a register number, while an ICE detainee has a "D number." But those numbers don't match, "so when [ICE] shows up asking for a D number and I don't have one, I don't know what to tell this person," Castillo says.

And immigration attorneys say vital legal and medical paperwork is going missing in the shuffle between BOP and ICE custody.

"We've seen folks not having their notices to appear, which is one of most essential documents to have any hope of fighting your immigration case and it's often necessary to even attain an attorney," Wiese says. "Folks are getting their legal documents taken from them when they get transferred from Krome to FDC. We've heard multiple reports of a lack of continuity of medical care for folks who were receiving medical attention."

All of these issues coalesced on April 15, when Castillo says the afternoon headcount of inmates came up one person short—because of a miscount, he believes. Detainees were ordered out of holding cells to be counted over and over.

"They were looking for an inmate that basically was a ghost,' Castillo says. "We were supposed to clear count by 4 p.m., and the count didn't clear until 9:57 p.m., which was three minutes before the next count. I believe they just papered that because, if it doesn't clear a second time, there's a protocol that they have to follow. They have to reach out to the regional director and so on and so forth."

("Papering" refers to falsifying or backfilling records, and it's a common problem in the BOP. For example, the correctional officers on duty when Jeffrey Epstein killed himself at a BOP jail falsified their observation logs.)

Castillo says he's seen counts drag on for half an hour, maybe 45 minutes, but never like that in his 16 years at the BOP. 

Blankenship says that among the detainees were 42 men transferred from Krome that day, including one of her clients. They were being held in a temporary processing cell during the hours-long count.

"They weren't given access to any way to call their lawyers or families. No food. there's no water in there," Blankenship says. "So it starts getting intense. The officers come and are immediately extremely aggressive and are saying things like, 'Y'all are all going to El Salvador. That's where you belong. You're all criminals and gang members. You're in BOP now'—all the abusive stuff that you hear."

After nearly five hours, the detainees had enough.

"Inmates were refusing to move because they felt like [correctional officers] were toying with them," Castillo says. "You know, come back outside. Let me count you again. Let me count you again. They became agitated, and they were like, OK we're not coming out of the cell anymore."

Castillo says the detainees broke the sprinkler system, flooding the floor. 

A BOP response team in SWAT gear was sent in to regain control of the cell, throwing flashbang grenades—non-lethal explosives that temporarily deafen and disorient targets.

Blankenship says that in the aftermath, detainees were retaliated against for days after. "My client was denied his blood pressure medicine for five days, denied diabetic medication for five days, and had no ability to call family or counsel for five days," she says. "I couldn't find him, and they kept him shackled away."

A BOP spokesperson denied that allegation.

"We can confirm, there was an incident on April 15, 2025, involving detainees," the spokesperson said. "However, any involved detainees were transferred back to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody within 24 hours."

The visiting room at FDC Miami was closed the next day because of flooding.

The incident largely escaped public notice, except for one local news story. The only details a BOP spokesperson would reveal, though, were that  "multiple incarcerated individuals became disruptive at the Federal Detention Center Miami," some of whom "were medically assessed and treated for minor injuries at the facility."

As for legal access, a BOP spokesperson says the agency "routinely maintains contact with any attorneys, including immigration attorneys. Additionally, at this time, there are no identified unresolved issues or concerns associated with property or medication."

That's not the perspective of BOP employees on the ground, though.

"It's only a matter of time before we have a huge catastrophe, and you saw what happened this week with those 10 inmates in Louisiana," Castillo says, referring to a recent mass jailbreak.