Updated June 5, 2025 at 12:40 PM MST

The text message, sent to NPR, came in early May:

Jasmine Garsd / NPR / NPR

It was accompanied by a screenshot of a photo of a man with swollen red eyes, with another screenshot of his full detainee information.

"Please help me. Im desperate."

The woman who sent it, Maria, was texting about her brother at the Krome Detention Center in Miami. She requested their last name be withheld, for fear of retaliation against her brother who has been held in detention for more than two months.

She told NPR, he had a fever, a serious eye infection for almost two weeks, and says he was denied medication for both.

"There are a lot of sick people there, and they aren't getting medical attention," she told NPR over the phone. "They are sleeping on the floor,

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