'Alligator Alcatraz' Denounced as Epitome of GOP Dehumanization and Cruelty Toward Migrants

Rights advocates and Democratic officials across the United States this week are condemning the Trump administration and Florida Republicans' effort to construct a migrant detention facility in the Everglades dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz."

Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier laid out plans to transform the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport—previously called the Everglades Jetport—into a temporary detention facility for undocumented immigrants in a video posted on the social media site X last week.

The site "presents an efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don't need to invest that much in the perimeter. People get out, there's not much waiting for 'em other than alligators and pythons," he said in the video. "Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide."

"Detaining immigrants at a remote airfield in the Everglades, with no clear legal framework or due process, is about fear, not safety."

Citing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Reuters reported that "the Florida facility, estimated to cost $450 million annually, could eventually house up to 5,000 people."

According to The New York Times, "A spokesperson for the attorney general said work on the new facility started on Monday morning." The effort is directly tied to President Donald Trump's push for mass deportations that critics denounce as devastating for families and the economy.

Trump's homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, told USA Today that the facility will be partly funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program. Her department said on X that "we are working on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people's mandate for mass deportations. Alligator Alcatraz will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida."

Responding to that post, Uthmeier wrote that "I'm proud to help support President Trump and Secretary Noem in their mission to fix our illegal immigration problem once and for all. Alligator Alcatraz and other Florida facilities will do just that. We in Florida will fight alongside this administration to keep Florida safe, strong, and free."

The plan has been lambasted by some local environmentalists and Indigenous people, as well as Florida Democrats. José Javier Rodríguez, a Democrat running to be the state's attorney general, said in a Wednesday statement that Uthmeier's Alligator Alcatraz "isn't a serious plan, it's a reckless, rushed project that puts lives and resources at risk."

"Detaining immigrants at a remote airfield in the Everglades, with no clear legal framework or due process, is about fear, not safety," he continued. "The most obvious reason seems to be political theater, just trying to get attention in Washington, rather than looking out for the interests of our state and its people."

"Now they're funding it with FEMA dollars—money meant to help us prepare for hurricanes and natural disasters, especially in states like Florida," he added, also noting Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' use of emergency powers to seize the site.

Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.) also blasted the plan, saying in a Tuesday statement that "Donald Trump, his administration, and his enablers have made one thing brutally clear: They intend to use the power of government to kidnap, brutalize, starve, and harm every single immigrant they can—because they have a deep disdain for immigrants and are using them to scapegoat the serious issues facing working people."

"They would rather us point fingers at immigrants for the housing crisis, violence, lack of healthcare, and high costs that plague our nation rather than blame the inaction of politicians and greedy corporations," he argued. "This was never about public safety. It was never about putting America first."

Frost continued:

They target migrants, rip families apart, and subject people to conditions that amount to physical and psychological torture in facilities that can only be described as hell on Earth. Now, they want to erect tents in the blazing Everglades sun and call it immigration enforcement. They don't care if people live or die; they only care about cruelty and spectacle.

I've toured these facilities myself—real ones, not the makeshift tents they plan to put up—and even those detention centers contain conditions that are nothing short of human rights abuses. Places where people are forced to eat, sleep, shower, and defecate all in the same room. Places where medical attention is virtually nonexistent.

Anyone who supports this is a disgusting excuse for a human being, let alone a public servant.

Frost wasn't the only federal lawmaker who sounded the alarm this week. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), a fierce critic of the president's anti-migrant agenda, said Tuesday that "there's no clearer illustration of the brutality of the Trump administration than robbing funds from cities supporting asylum-seekers to build 'Alligator Alcatraz.'"

"Nope, that's not an island for bad-behaving alligators your family could visit after Disney," she wrote on social media. "It's a f*up Floridian replica of one of our most notorious prisons to disappear, isolate, and abuse immigrants."

Notably, Trump last month advocated for reopening the island prison of Alcatraz in California's San Francisco Bay.