South Floridians line up outside ICE facility where Haitian woman died to protest Alligator Alcatraz, Trump's immigration policies
For the second day in a row, protestors took to the streets of South Florida to speak out against the Trump administration's immigration policies.
This comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received additional funding from the president's "big, beautiful bill" and after a new ICE detention center opened in the Florida Everglades this week.
Questions left unanswered in detained Haitian woman's death
Protestors lined up outside the Broward Transitional Center on Saturday, which is where 44-year-old Marie Ange Blaise died while in ICE custody on April 25. Immigration officials said she had entered the U.S. without permission. The cause of her death is under investigation.
"We wanna make sure those things don't happen again to our children [and] to other immigrants," said organizer Widline Pierre. "We wanna make sure those things are preventable."
Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick attended the protest, saying she wants a hearing to find out why Blaise died. ICE's website said seven people have died in its custody so far this year.
"We also need to take a good look at what's going on within the facilities," the congresswoman said. "Right after she died we came to this facility and we looked at it. And we tried to speak to some of the medical personnel and they were very evasive. And they said that they would be providing us with information that we still have not received."
Pierre said she feels immigrants are being treated unfairly.
"What they're doing is not about enforcing the rules; it's about belittling the immigration communities," Pierre said. "We're being bullied."
Alligator Alcatraz controversy continues
The protesters here were also speaking out against the new ICE detention facility down in the Everglades: Alligator Alcatraz. It was put together in about eight days, and the first group of migrants was sent to the facility this week.
Elena Munoz told CBS News Miami that the facility is inhumane since it's surrounded by alligators and pythons.
"It's the worst thing for many, many things," she said. "First, it should not be in that land. First of all. Second, it's not in a safe place."
On top of that, ICE got a big funding boost on Friday when President Trump signed his "big, beautiful bill" into law, which added $75 million for new ICE agents and for building more detention facilities.
