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TRUMP’S ‘ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ’ REVEALS THE ONGOING CRUELTY
TOWARDS MIGRANTS IN US  
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Richard Luscombe
July 7, 2025
The Guardian
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_ President’s supporters are gleeful but Everglades jail could
prove to be a humanitarian and environmental tragedy _

President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., Homeland Security
Secretary Kristi Noem and others, tour “Alligator Alcatraz,” a new
migrant detention facility at Dade-Collier Training and Transition
facility, Tuesday, July 1, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla., (AP Photo/Evan
Vucci)

 

After the cruelty, the mockery. As the first detainees were being
hauled into Donald Trump
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migrant jail
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the inhospitable, steamy wetlands of the Florida
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his supporters were indulging in some parallel retail therapy.

“Surrounded by swamps & pythons, it’s a one-way ticket to
regret,” the Florida Republican party’s official X account
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its new range of Alligator Alcatraz-themed shirts and hats. “Grab
our merch to support tough-on-crime borders! Limited supply – get
yours before the gators do!”

The blatant and brutish grift on the back of the plight of America’s
undocumented is neither new nor surprising to those who have watched
Florida’s full-on assault
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migrants and immigration rights in recent years, led by its hard-right
Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.

They remember how he used Florida taxpayers’ money for a stunt
baiting dozens of Venezuelans to board a flight in Texas with false
promises of accommodation and jobs, then dumped them in Massachusetts
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promptly followed by the launch of a line of sardonic “DeSantis
Airlines – bringing the border to you” apparel, drinks glasses and
coffee mugs.

“Again, it proves that cruelty was always the point,” Maxwell
Frost, a Democratic Florida
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Guardian after the president and governor visited the swamp on Tuesday
to boast about how awful the camp will be for those held there.

“Selling hats and merchandise for a place that is about to become a
hell on earth for thousands of people who are going to be subjected to
some of the worst conditions and human rights abuses you could think
of is disgusting.

“These are human beings being held in a tent in the middle of the
Everglades, where temperatures are 90F to 100F daily, and hurricane
season is an ever-present threat. We saw a run-of-the-mill Florida
rainstorm cause flooding on the day that Trump and DeSantis touted the
facility. We saw water pouring in and tents shaking
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some slight rain.

“The hats, the facility, the press conferences and media interviews
– this is all one fun, cruel, disgusting game to them. To treat
people like animals, like they’re less than, because they were not
born in this country. And the truth is that they don’t care about
the human lives they will harm and potentially kill because of their
actions.”

To other observers, Trump’s high-visibility visit – his tour of
the site flanked by DeSantis and homeland security secretary Kristi
Noem, and his scornful advice to any escaping detainee that they would
need to learn to zigzag instead of run in a straight line from any
pursuing alligator – was the ultimate example of performance over
policy.

“This is Donald Trump
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catchy phrase, and market the heck out of the merch,” said Michael
Binder, professor of political science and public administration at
the University of North Florida.

“I certainly think that is much more about the show than the actual
usage of a detention center. Will they hold a bunch of people there?
Probably. Will it ever get entirely packed? Maybe. And it’s also
true that more detention centers are probably going to be needed if
they’re going to keep rounding people up.

“So theoretically it makes sense. The show provides immediate
political benefit. The risk they’re taking is down the road.”

Binder cited the example of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and
the botched federal response by the George W Bush administration
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a disaster that killed more than a thousand mostly Black and
low-income residents in New Orleans.

“What happens if something goes wrong at one of these camps?
They’re built presumably with aluminum pipes and some tarps. This is
Florida, right? We get hurricanes. If you have a hurricane run through
there, I think it’s gone,” he said.

“The air conditioning is going to be limited at best. It’s hot in
the summer. What happens if people start dying? These are things that
can really turn poorly. If you think about Katrina, and the black eye
that put on the Bush administration, if it happened in 2003 instead of
2005 it’s probable they wouldn’t have been re-elected.

“These things can have real consequences if the national narrative
turns exceptionally negative.”

Any such consequences are unlikely to concern Trump or DeSantis, both
of whom have extolled the harshest possible conditions
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immigrant detainees, while being termed out at the conclusion of their
respective current terms in office.

In DeSantis’s case, however, some see his full-throated backing for
Trump’s immigration agenda, Alligator Alcatraz and the warp-speed
effort that turned it from a simple idea to operational facility
inside 10 days as evidence of his determination to be in the mix for
the 2028 presidential election despite his dismal 2024 effort
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“While his time in Florida is on the clock, he certainly has eyes on
going back to Iowa in a couple of years, and staying relevant in the
national spotlight is vitally important to him,” Binder said.

“Keeping his name in the press, in the media, around an issue that
his base thinks is important, is certainly useful to that end.”

An alliance of immigration advocates, environmental groups, and the
Miccosukee and Seminole Native American tribes that oppose Alligator
Alcatraz says that DeSantis’s race to build the camp – which state
officials have said could hold up to 5,000 detainees and 1,000 staff
at capacity – threatens not only area residents, but also the
fragile wetlands he has claimed to champion
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“Development of this scale at this location requires massive changes
to an ecologically delicate landscape, including running huge
generators, trucking in massive amounts of food and water, and
trucking out waste,” Melissa Abdo, Sun Coast regional director of
the National Parks Conservation Association, said.

“Communities in the area, as well as the people detained and working
at this facility, could all be at serious risk if the need arose to
quickly evacuate from a hurricane, using only a single two-lane
highway that’s currently under construction.”

Representative Frost said he shares critics’ fears, and highlighted
the choice of the camp’s remote location, which is popular with
hunters and outdoorsmen.

“For people like Trump, DeSantis and Noem, this is a sick game of
hunting, kidnapping, harming and discarding human beings,” he said.

“It was never about helping Americans or putting our country first.
What we’re seeing is pure hatred and disdain for human beings
because of the color of their skin and where they were born.”

_Richard Luscombe is a reporter for Guardian US based in Miami,
Florida_

* Alligator Alcatraz
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* Trump
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* Immigration Policy
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* Racism
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