Alligator Alcatraz: Florida Moves to Build a Massive Detention Camp in the Everglades
Florida is rushing ahead with a chilling new immigration detention center deep in the Everglades, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz.” This is state-sponsored cruelty on a scale that echoes the darkest chapters of history. A detention camp in the swamp built to cage thousands of people is not policy. It is inhumane, deliberate, and deeply wrong.
It was quietly pushed through with no warning to local officials or the state legislators expected to fund it. The site, a long-abandoned airstrip in a protected region, is being seized under Governor Ron DeSantis’ emergency powers, bypassing the usual legal and democratic processes.
This may be one of the most extreme and authoritarian actions of DeSantis’ tenure. State officials moved in without public input, Florida’s Attorney General DeSantis’ former chief of staff, James Uthmeier, boasted about it in a cruel, mocking video posted to Twitter:
And be aware that a Judge just found Uthmeier in contempt over immigration law.
The Department of Homeland Security has approved housing up to 5,000 people in this remote site, targeting migrants arrested by state police or handed over by federal agents. The facility is expected to cost $450 million a year, funded in part by FEMA under a shelter reimbursement program that was never intended for mass incarceration.
Construction has already begun. Florida is bringing in FEMA trailers for staff and setting up tents to hold detainees. The governor’s office claims no permanent structures will be built, as if that somehow justifies creating an isolated prison camp in the middle of a protected wetland.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem praised the plan as a fast, efficient way to carry out mass deportations. That efficiency will come at the expense of human dignity and basic rights. According to Rep. Maxwell Frost, current detention centers already resemble humanitarian nightmares - filthy, overcrowded, and medically neglectful. He warned that this new site will be no different, calling it a moral disgrace and condemning anyone who supports it as unfit to serve the public.
What is happening in Florida is not policy. It is state-sanctioned cruelty, and it is happening fast.
In Closing: I would love to hear from you! So please don’t just sit with this in your inbox. Click through to leave me a comment and to start a conversation. Engage and share away.
Raise the volume with me! Outspoken
Coming soon: Q&A’s with some of the most fascinating people you think you already know.
How did the US get so horrible so fast? Trump. SCOTUS opened the door for rabid, psychotic behavior and now the leashes are off. If we are going to salvage this country we need a swift change. It has to happen or we lose it all.
It’s all part of a larger terror campaign. The American government has quickly become a terrorist organization. This is meant to terrify not only current and would-be immigrants but also those of us who speak out against dear leader. And what’s even better is it’s yet another money grab by all those invested in the private prison industrial complex.
The only people who should be left in the middle of the Everglades are DeSantis, ICE and the Trump Regime.