BAKER COUNTY, Fla. — A 19-year-old Venezuelan teenager said he was on his way to work in St. Johns County when federal agents detained him, despite his pending asylum case and work permit.
He spent 45 days at Florida’s Baker County immigration detention facility, where he describes extreme heat, intentional disrupted sleep, and a fellow detainee being denied medication during an epileptic seizure.
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The young man asked Action News Jax to call him Michael. It’s to protect his identity because of concerns about his legal case.
He was released on September 21, after spending more than a month locked up.
It came after a judge approved habeas corpus relief and bond. He is still fighting for asylum in the United States.
Michael’s account comes as a federal watchdog report raises questions about oversight of Florida’s immigration detention facilities, including the Baker County facility known as “Deportation Depot.”
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The September 11, 2026 report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General details conditions found during an unannounced inspection of the now-closed immigration detention facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz” in Ochopee, Florida.
The report also references the former Baker County Correctional Institution, where more than 1,000 detainees were being held as of August 2026.
The report does not say the conditions found at Alligator Alcatraz also exist at Baker. But its discussion of Baker raises questions about who is responsible for monitoring conditions there and whether federal inspectors are regularly checking the facility.
Maria Garcia, an organizer with the Jacksonville Immigrant Rights Alliance, said she was angered by the watchdog’s findings about Alligator Alcatraz.
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“It’s unacceptable. My dog has more room to move around in the crate that I have,” Garcia said.
The report documents concerns at Alligator Alcatraz, including dirty drinking water and bugs on shower ceilings.
It reports small metal enclosures with locking mechanisms - pictures that were hard for Garcia to see.
However, the report said, “Staff also reported that time spent in the small metal enclosures is carefully monitored, and detainees are not locked in.”
“A cage? Why? Why?” Garcia said.
Members of the Jacksonville Immigrant Rights Alliance regularly rally in support of people held in immigration detention. Garcia said organizers have heard directly from detainees who raised concerns about medical care and food.
MARCH 2026 STORY: Jacksonville protest planned for Venezuelan woman detained by ICE, held in Baker County jail
But the investigation also examined a separate question: Who is checking conditions at Baker County’s detention facility?
According to the report, ICE’s own inspectors had not inspected Baker, and the facility was not scheduled for an inspection in 2026 or 2027, as described in the report.
ICE’s documentation also lists the contractually obligated standards for Baker as “N/A.”
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin defended the department’s oversight practices when he was in town earlier this week.
“I get reports daily, weekly, and monthly. The number of individuals we have, what is going on in the facilities,” Mullin said.
He also said detention facilities are inspected regularly and compared with state prisons.
MARCH 2026 STORY: ‘A blank check’: Emergency trust fund used to bankroll state’s immigration efforts reauthorized
“If you look at our inspections, we pass our inspections over and over again. Are we perfect? No. But when you start comparing it to state penitentiaries, we score way above,” Mullin said.
Mullin also said detention facilities have more medical personnel and space per person than many state prisons.
“We compare it across all of our detention centers and look at best practices… and make sure we’re keeping our health standards to above what the state requires,” he said.
The secretary said the department is continuing to look for ways better itself.
“At DHS, we protect the homeland, and we also deport individuals. And so we’re always looking for ways to improve,” Mullin said.
‘I don’t want to go back there’
Michael’s journey to the United States began in Venezuela, where he said his childhood was marked by hunger, a lack of electricity and the absence of basic necessities.
He described traveling through the jungles of Central America and into Mexico before waiting months for a CBP One appointment.
CBP One was the border application that allowed nearly 1 million people to legally enter the United States with eligibility to work.
Michael said he did not want to return to Venezuela.
“Our childhood was filled with hunger, filled with not having electricity, filled with now having basic needs. And we saw a lot of friends die trying to defend our country so that we could have those basic needs, but I don’t wanna go back there,” he said.
JANUARY 2026 STORY: Governor Ron DeSantis provides update on state’s immigration enforcement effort at Deportation Depot
After entering the United States, Michael said he had a work permit and a pending asylum case.
Clara Sowers, a woman who helps immigrants from Latin America, connected Action News Jax with Michael and his mother. Sowers translated his account, but Michael’s voice is heard in the interview.
Sowers picked Michael up the night he was released from the facility in Baker County.
Sowers described him as a legal immigrant who had applied through the border process rather than circumventing inspection.
One morning last summer, Michael said, he was on his way to work as a window installer when federal agents picked him up in St. Johns County.
“They didn’t tell us why we were being detained,” he said.
SEPTEMBER 2025 STORY: Deportation Depot opens as Alligator Alcatraz gets green light to continue deportation operations
Michael said the agents told him and others they were supposedly in the country illegally.
He said the agents identified themselves as federal police.
“They shackled our feet and put us in a van,” he said.
Michael said he, his father, and other men were repeatedly taken out and pressured to sign paperwork to self-deport.
“Yes, all that time. They only took us out to tell us to sign, sign, and sign,” he said.
Sowers said Michael had an asylum process underway and a work permit at the time of his arrest.
‘It’s not suitable for people’
Michael spent 45 days at Baker County’s detention facility.
In his native Spanish, he described the experience as “inhumano” and “horrible.”
He also described the facility as “uninhabitable for humans” and said it was not a place where people should be held.
One of his biggest concerns was the heat.
Michael said windows in the first building where he stayed had already been broken, possibly by previous detainees struggling with the heat.
He said conditions were also extremely hot in another cell block, where reinforced windows prevented detainees from breaking them open. According to his account, two air conditioners were not enough to cool the area, leaving little airflow.
AUGUST 2025 STORY: Baker County Correctional Institution under construction ahead of ‘Deportation Depot’ transition
Michael also described being woken around 2:30 or 3 a.m. for breakfast. He said guards would immediately turn on the television, making it difficult to sleep again.
Through Sowers’ translation, he described the experience as psychological torture.
Michael said he witnessed other detainees struggling with medical needs, including a friend who experienced an epileptic seizure.
Sowers said the friend was denied medication and was still experiencing the seizure when he was moved and shackled.
Michael also described what he considered mistreatment of detainees. He said older people and those with disabilities were not allowed to sit on benches while waiting.
“It wasn’t physical abuse, but mentally, psychologically,” he said, describing the treatment.
Michael’s mother said she had heard from her son about the distress he experienced inside the facility. She said he became very stressed about what was happening after about two weeks.
A judge approves bond
After more than a month in detention, Michael’s situation changed when a judge approved habeas corpus relief and bond.
His family scraped together the money needed to secure his release.
On September 21, Michael walked out of the facility and left in a car driven by Sowers.
He described his time at Baker as traumatic and said the facility was not suitable for people to be imprisoned.
Mullin, meanwhile, defended the department’s immigration enforcement policies, telling Action News Jax that DHS is working to enforce immigration laws and remove what he called “the worst of the worst” from the streets.
AUGUST 2025 STORY: NE Florida could take state immigration detention focus as Alligator Alcatraz population dwindles
The secretary said the department evaluates detention facilities and looks for ways to improve conditions.
Michael remains in the United States while pursuing his asylum case.
He is no longer behind the walls of Baker County’s detention facility. But his account raises questions about the conditions detainees face there — and the oversight in place to check them.
For Michael, freedom has meant returning to his fight to build a life in the United States. For the hundreds of others who remain in detention, release is still out of reach.
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