MIAMI — Immigrant rights advocates, faith leaders and community organizers on Wednesday called for unannounced inspections of the Miramar field office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, citing weeks of reports that people have been held there for days in crowded, unsanitary conditions.

Jacqueline Lopez, executive director of Women Working Together USA, said the building is essentially functioning as a detention center, even though it was not built for that.

“This facility was designed as an administrative office, not as a detention center,” Lopez said. “It does not have the infrastructure or the conditions to keep people deprived of liberty.”

For years, Lopez said, advocates have brought those concerns to Miramar officials. In December, she said, they raised the issue during a meeting with then-Vice Mayor Yvette Colbourne. City officials committed to investigating, Lopez said, but advocates have not seen concrete action or an official visit to verify the conditions inside.

“Transparency and accountability are indispensable when the life, health and dignity of people are at stake,” Lopez said.

The press conference was organized by the Miramar Circle of Protection, a coalition that has gathered outside the facility since 2017 to support immigrants attending check-ins and denounce detentions and deportations.

Guadalupe de la Cruz, program director for the American Friends Service Committee, described what advocates are seeing as an escalation: longer lines under the sun, more families separated and more people taken inside a building that was “never built to house them.”

She urged congressional leaders and other elected officials to conduct unannounced visits and inspect the conditions inside.

Speakers said recently released people and family members have described detainees sleeping on concrete floors, going days without showers, receiving limited food and water and bathrooms without adequate privacy. Two ambulances entered the facility shortly before the press conference began, though it is unclear what happened inside.

Several speakers tied the conditions at the Miramar facility to a broader increase in immigration enforcement across South Florida. More people, they said, are being detained after check-ins, court hearings or encounters with local law enforcement.

Arianne Betancourt, an immigrant-rights advocate, said the accounts coming from Miramar reflect a larger pattern of inhumane detention conditions. Oversight, she said, cannot be limited to one-time inspections.

“Human rights do not disappear once the doors close,” Betancourt said. “Constitutional rights do not apply to citizens only. They apply to anyone who touches this land.”

Sylvia Muñoz, a founding member of the Circle of Protection representing the Pedro Arrupe Jesuit Institute and the Cuban American Women’s Vote in Democracy, said she recently drove a woman from Homestead to an immigration office after the woman was released from Miramar.

The woman, Muñoz said, had seen people fainting from the heat.

“They are human beings, and as such, they need to be treated humanely,” Muñoz said.

Advocates are asking elected officials to inspect the facility without advance notice, ensure that anyone held overnight has access to food, water, medical care and a place to sleep, and examine whether the Miramar office is being used beyond its intended purpose.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment about conditions at the Miramar office in time for publication.

The coalition said it will continue showing up outside the facility until there is more transparency.

“Immigrant people deserve dignified and humane treatment,” Lopez said. “We will continue here, as we have for almost a decade, accompanying our families and raising our voices until there is transparency, supervision and respect for human rights.”

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