An outbreak of a respiratory disease, possibly Covid-19, is running rampant through the remote Florida immigration jail known as “Alligator Alcatraz”, according to the attorney of an infected detainee removed from the camp last week.

Eric Lee said he was told by his client Luis Manuel Rivas Velásquez that conditions at the facility had deteriorated significantly since Thursday as more migrants held there by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency experienced symptoms.

Lee said authorities removed Rivas Velásquez, a 38-year-old Venezuelan man, from the camp after he was diagnosed in a hospital visit last week, then secretly taken to a similar facility in Texas.

Protesters at the gates of the jail in the heart of the Florida Everglades have recorded a number of instances of ambulances arriving and leaving.