John,
The new ICE detention camp deep in Florida’s Everglades -- grotesquely named “Alligator Alcatraz” by the state -- is an unconstitutional humanitarian disaster. But even more horrifying is the future injustice the Trump administration is planning for this site, and others like it: holding tens or even hundreds of thousands of people indefinitely, without charges, and without even the basic right to a hearing to plead their case.
These are not convicted criminals. Most have not even been accused of a crime. They are parents, workers, caregivers, and neighbors -- swept up in immigration raids with no chance to prove their legal status or defend themselves.
Now they are being disappeared into military-style tents made of canvas and chicken-wire and trailers not built to withstand the Category 3 or higher hurricanes that occur here frequently. Here detainees will have to endure sweltering heat, floods, swarms of gigantic Everglades mosquitoes, and inadequate plumbing, electricity, and medical care.
Like other concentration camps throughout history, this one is designed to maximize human suffering and cruelty. Detainees are cut off from families and legal assistance, and given no opportunity to appear before a judge. This is indefinite detention without due process -- and it is incompatible with everything this country is supposed to stand for.
Tell your members of Congress to defend due process, end indefinite detention, and stop Alligator Alcatraz before even more lives are lost to injustice.
The facility sits on land sacred to the Miccosukee and Seminole Nations, hastily built on a decommissioned airport runway inside Big Cypress National Preserve. There was no tribal consultation or consent, no environmental review, and no concern for endangered species. Even worse is the intolerable shift in American policy: from rule of law to rule by cruelty.
A newly revealed Trump administration memo outlines plans to deny detainees the right to bond hearings altogether, enabling a “roundup of millions” -- without trial, without due process, and without any way to prove they belong here, including U.S. citizens mistakenly detained. This horrifying vision would require more camps like Alligator Alcatraz, both within and outside of the country.
Yet to Trump, it’s all a joke. He told reporters, “A lot of bodyguards, a lot of cops in the form of alligators. You don’t have to pay them so much… This is not a nice business. I guess that’s the concept. We’re gonna teach them how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison.”
This is not law enforcement. It is state-sanctioned dehumanization -- dangerous, lawless, and utterly incompatible with the Constitution’s guarantees of equal justice under the law.
Behind this crisis is a corrupt pay-to-play scheme. CoreCivic, the private prison corporation running Alligator Alcatraz, poured over $800,000 into Trump’s campaign. Nine other state contractors behind the project gave nearly $2 million to DeSantis and the Florida GOP. This isn’t immigration policy -- it’s profit-driven mass incarceration.
Tell Congress to investigate the pay-to-play contracts. Enforce tribal sovereignty. Restore environmental protections. And above all, shut down this unlawful detention site and stop the expansion of a system built to disappear people into silence.
Thank you for standing up for human dignity, the rule of law, and the basic right to be heard.
-DFA AF Team
