EXCLUSIVE: Sick Alligator Alcatraz Prisoners Marked by Color-Coded Wristbands

"People are starting to go crazy," Marco Antonio Alvarez Bravo, imprisoned at Alligator Alcatraz, tells us in exclusive interview about mass disease—and fear—spreading inside controversial ICE prison

Status Coup recently reported ON-THE-GROUND outside the Alligator Alcatraz ICE prison and would like to return to continue investigating and spotlight ongoing protests against it. Support our investigative reporting as a Status Coup member for as low as $5 bucks a month.

“There are people that are starting to go crazy and anxious because everybody’s scared,” Marco Antonio Alvarez Bravo, currently imprisoned at the tented abomination blotting the Florida Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz, told me on Wednesday in an exclusive interview about the mass disease outbreak rampant inside the prison. His wife, Gladys Smith, was also on the call acting as a translator between myself and Marco (full audio below).

Like other prisoners who’ve spoken out, typically through their spouses, Alvarez Bravo confirmed there is a mass disease outbreak inside Alligator Alcatraz sickening the majority of prisoners—and a surge of mold that could be causing or worsening respiratory symptoms many prisoners are experiencing.

Sickness at Alligator Alcatraz is so rampant, guards are now identifying sick prisoners by color-coded wrist bands, Alvarez Bravo revealed.

“The cage where I’m in right now, everyone is sick,” he told Status Coup. “And what they're doing is they're putting on a certain type — a color — a different bracelet that states to the guards who's sick and who's not.”

Alvarez Bravo recalls seeing what appeared to be hazmat crews cleaning some of the cages — though with no real consistency. “In the cage that I’m in now, no one has come in to clean, even though that's where they're putting everyone that's sick.”

There are two designated cages in the facility where sick detainees — regardless of specific symptoms — are being quarantined together. The remaining cages, previously occupied by those not facing acute illness, are beginning to look vacant.

“A lot of the cages are emptied out, but nobody knows what's going on,” he said.

“When the consulate of Chile came in to visit me,” Alvarez Bravo said, again, through his wife, “as I was walking by through the hall, there's a lot of cages — all the way from cage one through cage six — they’re almost all emptied out. Five [and] six is where the sick people are at. Those are the ones that are full.”

Alvarez Bravo told us there’s been a growth of mold inside the prison—a common issue in Florida given high moisture and humidity conditions. The growth of mold could be accelerated inside Alligator Alcatraz given reports, and videos that have surfaced, showing the makeshift prison cages—built inside tents—flooding from rain water.

Medical experts told Status Coup the mold growing inside the controversial ICE prison could be contributing to widespread respiratory illness among prisoners.

“Mold can cause all sorts of respiratory symptoms,” Justin Feldman, a social epidemiologist and Department Associate at Harvard’s FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, told Status Coup. “Less likely to cause vomiting and diarrhea, but that could be related to food poisoning, viruses, etc.”

Feldman noted that the conditions at Alligator Alcatraz — people cramped together in hot tents — would only worsen the adverse health effects of the mold.

“The heat and humidity leads to more growth of mold spores. And if people are in an enclosed space with poor ventilation, the spores can be more concentrated in the air.”

While ICE and the Florida Division of Emergency Management [FDEM] both deny allegations of widespread disease and medical neglect in the facility, multiple sources, including attorneys for another detainee, James Hollis and Eric Lee, refute the agency’s unsubstantiated claim (video below).

“Essentially what we had heard from everybody who was in the facility last week was that around 80% of people were sick,” Hollis told Status Coup. “They had coughs, they had fevers, they had essentially what you would expect from a COVID-type outbreak.”

Neither ICE or FDEM responded to Status Coup’s follow-up questions about their denials regarding mass disease outbreak at Alligator Alcatraz.

Those imprisoned at the tent camp have also reported stomach virus-like symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea. Given the occurrence of standing water in the tent camp, potential for coming into contact with human waste (three bathrooms per 32 people, which allegedly back up regularly and need to be manually cleared out), and unverified water sources, these symptoms could be consistent with water-borne bacterial infections or mosquito-borne illnesses.

Alvarez Bravo says he has been treated at Kendall Regional Hospital four times since he arrived at Alligator Alcatraz. He first arrived at the facility on July 26, with pneumonia as a result of recent heart surgery.

“The first day that I woke up critically ill, I couldn't even walk. They brought me a wheelchair, and between the other inmates had to carry me, put me on a wheelchair, and I was carried to that little makeshift clinic that they have there.” He was not having issues walking prior to his imprisonment.

“They treated me, and I was taken back to the cell, to the cage. By nighttime, I was already so critical, a guard walked by and said, ‘No, there's no way. He can't be in here like this.’ And that's when the emergency came and kicked in, and they took me to Kendall Regional.” He says he was escorted by three armed guards to Kendall Regional Hospital, where he was admitted for about five hours. His legs and hands were cuffed throughout his transport to and from the hospital, and throughout his treatment at the hospital.

He added that Kendall Regional is the only hospital detainees are being taken to — and only in times of “dire emergency.”

Activists monitoring Alligator Alcatraz have reported a steep influx of buses coming in and out of the detention camp since last weekend indicating a large number of relocations. Thomas Kennedy, with the Florida Immigrant Coalition, has documented the surge of buses on social media. Previous reporting indicates prisoners have been transported to nearby ICE prisons in Florida as well as Texas.

In addition to the outbreak, many detainees are reported to be well over the 14-day legal limit for detention. “There's a lot of them that have been in there for over a month. Marco alone has been in there for, what, 23 days already. And we can't even find his deportation officer,” said Smith. “And like Marco, everybody's in the same situation. No one has no information. Marco says it feels like they have all been kidnapped.”

With the same tone of professionalism that has come to be associated with ICE, assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Status Coup:

“There is no wide-spread disease circulating at Alligator Alcatraz. There are no cases of COVID and no cases of Tuberculosis. The media is peddling FALSE narratives to demonize ICE.

There is no quarantine at Alligator Alcatraz. When illegal aliens come into the facility and require medications for an existing condition, the detainee is given a colored bracelet so the nurses can easily identify the detainees to ensure they get their medicine.

Despite the media’s hopes, dreams, and wishes that Alligator Alcatraz will close, I’m happy to disappoint them with the news that the facility remains open with no plans to close.”

Yes, of course, ICE is the party being “demonized” here according to the sycophantic, perennial victims heading the agency.

Stephanie Hartman, comms director of FDEM, registered her nonsense thusly:

“Detainees in Florida detention facilities, including the below-mentioned Alligator Alcatraz, are constantly evaluated for illness and treated if they are found to be unwell. Everyone has 24/7 access to a fully staffed medical facility, which has a pharmacy on site. Reports of a widespread illness at Alligator Alcatraz are false."

Meanwhile, back in this sordid reality, Marco Antonio Alvarez Bravo said to his wife from the ruins of the Everglades, “We’re locked up. We’re locked up in cages.”

Status Coup will continue investigating this important story. If you have information about current conditions inside Alligator Alcatraz, or have been in touch with any prisoners, please contact us at info@statuscoup.com. We also seek to return once again to report ON-THE-GROUND at Alligator Alcatraz. If you appreciate independent, on-scene investigative reporting, please support Status Coup as a paying member for as low as $5 dollars a month.