“They’re treating people like animals. Alligator Alcatraz is like (Nazi) Germany in 1939, updated with 2026 rules,” Dixon said in one of half a dozen phone calls he made to CTV News.

When he arrived at Alligator Alcatraz, Dixon says he and the other detainees were searched while handcuffed and shackled, then ordered to remove their clothes. They were given one set of underwear, a pair of flip flops and an orange jumpsuit.

Detainees were fingerprinted and assigned colour-coded bracelets. His bracelet was yellow, which meant he would get a hearing and stood a chance of not being deported.

He was then locked in a communal cell behind metal fencing that housed 16 bunkbeds for 32 men. What Dixon calls a “cage” had two urinals on the edge of the cell and a toilet in the centre. He says the smell of urine permeated the entire space and that the guards could see into the toilets.

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“There was not one dangerous person in there,” he said. “These people all have families. Everyone is pulling for everyone else. They were working and were in there for nonsense reasons.”

Dixon said the men in his pod were arrested because they “didn’t have complete paperwork or did not renew their [driver’s] licences,” and were rounded up by ICE at the licence bureau.

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Detainees were given three meals a day: Breakfast would consist of canned fruit and toast or oatmeal; lunch was often a bologna sandwich, while shredded chicken or ground beef with peas and carrots would be served for dinner.

Dixon says he was allowed to shower three days after he arrived and was given one hour of yard time every four days. He says he longed to see the blue sky, but all he saw was the white plastic tarp that covered the astroturf yard.

The Canadian man says he was unable to sleep while at Alligator Alcatraz because of the noise and disruption. While the showers were scalding hot, Dixon says the facility was freezing cold. The high-powered generators required to cool the facility were loud. And during the overnight shifts, guards would turn the lights on every four hours to do a head count in the cells.

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Dixon’s wife, Jo Ann Collison, says she’s worried about her husband’s anxiety.

“His mind is deteriorating. He’s terrified of flying. He hasn’t flown anywhere,” said Collison, tearing up during a Zoom interview. “He won’t be able to see his grandkids and that will be very hard.”

Collison says she needs to pack up their life in Florida before she returns to Montreal to be with her husband.

“I can’t go with him now. What if for some reason ICE doesn’t let me back in?”

After 65 days in detention, Dixon will board an American Airlines flight to Toronto on Wednesday. After 21 years of living in the United States, he will be barred from returning.