Evan Vucci/AP
An abandoned swamp packed with predators. Generic rock music. A “one-stop shop to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.”
That’s how Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier introduced “Alligator Alcatraz,” a detention center for migrants that is surrounded by deadly swampland. Hastily built in a matter of days to assist the Trump administration in meeting its deportation goals, the project has already spawned a line of merch, including beer cozies and hats. Immigrant advocates have decried the project as resembling concentration camps; Native communities warn that sacred lands are being destroyed.
The plan, which appeared to start as a “joke,” will impart incredible cruelty onto thousands of migrants, who will be packed into a dehumanizing facility in the scorching Florida heat.
But touring the facility in a Gulf of America hat on Tuesday, Trump delighted in the prospect of venomous wildlife catching—even killing—migrants who dare attempt to escape. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland and the only way out is deportation,” Trump said at a roundtable event. Sitting next to him was Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whom he praised as “elegant” in addition to being an “unbelievable horse person.” Neither appeared to acknowledge the egregious irony of using funds from FEMA, the agency decimated in Trump’s second term, to operate “Alligator Alcatraz.”
“They have a lot of bodyguards and a lot of cops that are in the form of alligators,” Trump said on Tuesday. “You don’t have to pay them so much.”
Here, the government’s cartoonish cruelty and “punitive theater” were once again on display. And, once again, its sadistic policies are set to exact incredible cruelty on thousands of migrants, many of whom are highly unlikely to have the criminal backgrounds the Trump administration claims they do. This time, it will be in scorching Florida heat, with 5,000 people packed into dehumanizing conditions in a facility constructed in just a few days. At Mar-a-Lago, some two hours away, the president will be relishing the fact that his alligator “joke” is now a reality.
“We’d like to see them in many states. At some point, they might morph into a system,” Trump said on Tuesday. As he spoke, the Senate narrowly passed the president’s sweeping domestic agenda with a budget bill that would gut social services and massively expand ICE, bringing Trump’s wish for such a system one step closer to actualization.
