Florida is once again the talk of the nation, and for all the wrong reasons.
From New Hampshire to California, everyone has strong opinions about the grotesque monument to inhumanity that is known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
In this editorial, we present several perspectives on the immigration detention camp in the Everglades.
No deterrent too cruel
“Alligator Alcatraz” is a bold, brutal message from an administration that has made punishing immigration enforcement a centerpiece principle: When it comes to migrants, no location is too remote, no condition too harsh, no deterrent too cruel.
The Everglades compound is no outlier. It represents the logical — and dangerous — escalation of an enforcement-first immigration agenda that treats asylum seekers and unauthorized migrants as threats to be neutralized.
With “Alligator Alcatraz,” Trump is doubling down on spectacle over substance, cruelty over compassion, and militarization over meaningful reform.
— Marcela García, Boston Globe columnist
Performative cruelty
Alligator Alcatraz will place detainees in life-threatening conditions. The site consists of heavy-duty tents and mobile units, in a location known for intense humidity and sweltering heat. Tropical storms, hurricanes and floods pass through the area regularly. On a day when the president visited, there was light rain and parts of the facility flooded. This is not a safe place for the support staff who will be working there, nor is it for detainees.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has praised the “natural” security at Alligator Alcatraz as “amazing.” When asked if the idea was for detainees to get eaten by alligators if they try to escape, President Trump replied, “I guess that’s the concept.”
However, escapes from immigration detention are rare. The June escape by four men from a New Jersey detention center made headlines, in part because it was such an unusual occurrence (three of the escaped detainees are back in custody). So the construction of a detention center with a “moat” of forbidding wildlife is just performative cruelty.
— Raul A. Reyes, immigration attorney and contributor to NBC Latino and CNN, in the Los Angeles Times
Rounding up innocents
After Democratic lawmakers visited over the weekend, they sharply denounced the scenes they’d witnessed of migrants packed into cages under inhumane conditions. Meanwhile, detainees and family members have sounded alarms about worm-infested food and blistering heat. And the Miami Herald reports that an unnervingly large percentage of the detainees lack criminal convictions.
… There’s good reason to think more red state politicians will seek to create their own versions of “Alligator Alcatraz” or get in on this action in other ways — and that more young Republican politicians will see it as a path to MAGA renown and glory.
For one thing, the money is now there. Buried in the big budget bill that Trump recently signed is a little-noticed provision that immigration advocates increasingly fear could fund more complexes like this one. It makes $3.5 billion available to “eligible states” and their agencies for numerous immigration-related purposes, including the “temporary detention of aliens.”
— Greg Sargent, staff writer, The New Republic
‘We’ve got a swamp’
The Republican Party of Florida was selling Alligator Alcatraz merchandise. You could get T-shirts, hats and beer koozies.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.. wanted South Carolina to have its own Alligator Alcatraz. She posted: “Dear DHS: We’ve got a swamp and a dream. Let’s talk. South Carolina’s gators are ready. And they’re not big on paperwork. If I was governor, we’d be bringing Alligator Alcatraz to South Carolina.”
To say this is sick doesn’t express the degree of dehumanization in which MAGA world is indulging. They treat it as an amusement or entertainment, but even the Nazis didn’t glorify their concentration camps. They tried to hide them. There is a loss of any sense of humanity celebrating a spectacle of cruelty and sadism.
— Jonathan P. Baird, an opinion writer for the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, whose essay was entitled “Glorification of a Concentration Camp”
Why it should close
Ultimately, taxpayers are on the hook for such exorbitant budgets, even while Americans are increasingly against Trump’s crackdown. Costs aren’t the only reason why Florida’s state-run immigration detention center should close. But just as the original Alcatraz closed down for its ballooning costs, so too should Alligator Alcatraz.
— Reason.com, the website of the libertarian Reason Foundation
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at [email protected].
