Another Florida Detention Center Plagued with Toxic Chemicals and Unbreathable Air, According to Report

Miami, FL —

Today, a coalition of researchers and immigrants rights’ and environmental organizations published a new report detailing conditions at Glades County Detention Center (Glades) in Moore Haven, FL, and documenting ongoing, widespread environmental and human rights concerns. This report draws historic parallels between the exploitative sugarcane industry and current carceral land use and documents the jail as a site of environmental and carceral violence. The report examines the years between 2008–2022, when thousands of immigrants spent hundreds of cumulative years detained at Glades, a county jail on the western shore of Lake Okeechobee, close to the Everglades Agricultural Area.

According to the report, the Glades County Detention Center promised jobs and economic development for this rural county. But instead of bringing economic benefit to Glades County, the jail drew from public funds to siphon money to out-of-state bondholders. Rather than generating local prosperity, Glades drained and diverted public money and harmed detained people, who were systematically exposed to environmental hazards.

Through exhaustive documentation, research, and interviews, this report shows three major sources of concern of toxic exposures and human rights abuses at Glades.

• Industrial Chemical Disinfectant Misuse: Since the COVID-19 pandemic, two disinfectant sprays were used at Glades: Mint and Maxim Neutral. Both contain antimicrobial quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs), a highly toxic industrial pesticide. Both were administered at much higher concentrations than allowable by the manufacturer or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Complaints and testimonies detail that people detained inside Glades experienced painful, burning, red, and swollen eyes, nose, and throat; difficulty breathing, accompanied by sneezing and coughing that sometimes produced blood; severe nausea; stomach pain; and headaches as a direct result of hazardous chemicals being sprayed on them.
• Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: In 2021, a carbon monoxide buildup in the Glades County Detention Center kitchen poisoned nine people: six detained kitchen workers and three Glades staff members. The poisoning incident was so severe that four detained men (and at least one Glades Sheriff’s Office employee) were hospitalized following the exposure. Carbon monoxide poisoning is easily preventable, but the Glades detention center lacked a carbon monoxide monitor. The failure to install carbon monoxide monitors was part of a pattern of neglect that rendered the air inside the jail unbreathable.
• Pepper Spray: Pepper spray was systematically deployed as a form of punishment, and in retaliation when detained people asked for basic necessities like water and toilet paper. In addition, a series of complaints and legal cases established that pepper spray was disproportionately used against Black people detained at Glades.

Even if detained only for a short time, the negative health impacts on those detained from these toxic exposures can last a lifetime.

The Glades County Detention Center exemplifies a broader trend in Florida: the repurposing of state and local infrastructure, capacities, and resources to criminalize, confine, and punish immigrants. Florida has long been a laboratory for diverting public money and political will away from community needs and towards the criminalization of immigrants. The state has redirected unprecedented public resources toward the surveillance and confinement of immigrants, embedding immigration policing into government at every scale. Beyond Florida, and across the U.S., immigration detention increasingly relies on county jails to detain people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.

Guadalupe de la Cruz, Editor and Program Director of AFSC Florida said:

“This report reveals a detention system that dehumanizes people and harms them in profound ways. Glades is not an anomaly; it reflects how immigrant detention inflicts deep and lasting suffering on people and communities. The Glades County Detention Center exemplifies a broader trend in Florida: the repurposing of state and local infrastructure, capacities, and resources to criminalize, confine, and punish immigrants. Florida has long been a laboratory for diverting public money and political will away from community needs and towards the criminalization of immigrants. That is why we are calling on state and local leaders to end their participation in immigrant detention and permanently close the Glades County Detention Center.”

Emma Shaw Crane, lead author and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University, said, “This report documents widespread and systemic environmental violence at the Glades County Detention Center. Extensive testimony documents that detained people were sprayed with antimicrobial sprays at toxic concentrations, exposed to a disabling carbon monoxide leak, and pepper sprayed as punishment for asking for necessities like water and toilet paper. These hazards made the air inside the jail unbreathable and collectively punished detained people who could not breathe freely inside this facility. When Glades County built this jail, they inadvertently opened a black hole: one that disappeared detained people, who experienced profound environmental violence at Glades, and devoured and diverted public funds, which should have instead been used to support the health and wellbeing of Glades County residents.”

Nanci Palacios Godinez, Organizing and Membership Director at Detention Watch Network, said: “This timely report adds to the overwhelming evidence bank illustrating how immigration detention is inherently inhumane and abusive in Florida and beyond. In no uncertain terms, ICE has repeatedly proven that no one is safe in its custody. This report details the record of abuse at Glades, which exemplifies the realities people face in detention across the country. As the Trump administration continues to ruthlessly pursue detention expansion, including growing ICE partnerships with local sheriffs and county jails, we need real leaders who aren’t afraid to unite against Trump and advocate for the rights and dignity of everyone.”

“This is just one of several immigration detention facilities in Florida in recent years in which we’ve seen a troubling disregard for the health of people detained or the surrounding environment,” said Dominique Burkhardt, Earthjustice attorney. “The courageous effort by advocates and those detained to expose these conditions is vital in an immigration detention system that would otherwise operate as a black box.”

“Led by immigrants detained in Glades County, communities successfully organized to run ICE out of town before, and will do so again,” said Jeff Migliozzi, communications director at Freedom for Immigrants. “As this report makes clear, the Glades County Detention Center will perpetuate the ugliest chapters of U.S. history as long as it remains standing. On top of this facility’s heinous record of brutality and human rights abuses against Black and brown people, immigration detention is a bad deal for local communities. Across the country, there are hundreds of rural counties like Glades in need of healthy and sustainable investments and jobs. And as is the case in so many other places, the promised economic growth from incarceration has not materialized for local residents. The story of Glades County is a potent reminder that our struggle for clean air, good jobs, and freedom are all interconnected.”

Read the report.