Florida Begins Construction Of 'Alligator Alcatraz' Migrant Facility
Florida Begins Construction On Migrant Detention Center Dubbed ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ To Bolster Trump’s Anti-Immigration Agenda
In today’s episode of Nah, Seriously, It’s A Cult, officials in Florida have begun construction on a new migrant detention facility that seems to double as a gift-wrapped tribute to President Donald Trump and his anti-immigration agenda to make unbridled xenophobia great again.
Weeks after Trump declared he is moving forward with his plan to reopen Alcatraz — despite most experts saying it’s a foolish endeavor because there’s no infrastructure for it, it would be a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a prison that hasn’t been operational since 1963, and, of course, America has no shortage of prisons anyway — Florida officials announced the state’s own new facility, “Alligator Alcatraz.”
From CNN:
“Alligator Alcatraz,” as Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier calls it, is being erected on a little-used airstrip in the Everglades, the vast expanse of marshes and swamps that covers much of southern Florida and hosts a dizzying array of wildlife, from hundreds of bird species to bobcats, panthers, crocodiles and alligators.
“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons,” Uthmeier said in an announcement video that casts the facility as “the one-stop shop to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda” and features slow-motion footage of snapping alligators.
Nah, seriously, it’s a cult.
Trump wants Alcatraz; Florida gives him “Alligator Alcatraz.” Trump hates migrants; Florida gives him a visual representation of how bad they want to feed Brown people to gators and pythons.
In 2019, during Trump’s first term, the New York Times reported that during a White House staff meeting, the president floated the idea of fortifying the U.S. southern border with a moat infested with alligators. Trump later denied he toyed around with the idea of installing a functional Medieval Times security system at the southern border. Florida officials, who would perform blood sacrifices to Trump if it were socially acceptable, didn’t get the memo and decided to honor him with a prison it doesn’t matter if inmates escape from because it’s surrounded by a giant alligator moat.
Anyway, besides the ethical and moral issues the facility presents, it might also be an environmental threat.
To build the facility, developers are temporarily repurposing the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, which Uthmeier described as “an old, virtually abandoned airport facility right in the middle of the Everglades.”
Yeah — turns out there’s a reason the airport is “virtually abandoned.”
More from CNN:
Plans to build the Everglades facility have been met with fierce criticism from environmental advocacy groups like the Friends of the Everglades, who on Sunday organized a protest against the detention center.
In a public letter addressed to Uthmeier and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the group said the piece of land where the center would be built is “critical to the future of the Everglades.”
“Don’t open the door to development in one of America’s most fragile and iconic ecosystems, surrounded by Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve,” the group wrote.
Friends of the Everglades was founded to oppose construction on the very same spot in 1969, Eve Samples, the group’s executive director, told CNN affiliate WPTV.
At that time, the same piece of land was supposed to house the Everglades Jetport, one of the biggest, most ambitious airport projects of that time. The plan was abandoned after just one runway was built, over concerns it would “destroy the South Florida ecosystem,” according to a 1969 report.
“It really strikes you as a clueless idea that was off the cuff,” Samples said of the new facility. “It’s really ironic that the state attorney general is characterizing this as a largely abandoned site. It was abandoned because the people of Florida, including Friends of the Everglades, rose up to stop it back in 1969, 1970.”
Predictably, the construction of “Alligator Alcatraz” has already drawn hundreds of protesters to the Everglades.
But despite all the pushback, Uthmeier said Monday in an interview with pro-MAGA commentator Benny Johnson that the detention center should be ready to host detainees the first week of July, that the National Guard will be called in to help run it, and that construction on the facility should go fast because it will consist of “light infrastructure” like heavy-duty tents and trailers.
But don’t worry, folks, Florida’s attorney general is promising inmates will get “the due process that all these courts say they need.”
It’s uh — it’s actually the U.S. Constitution that says they need that, but whatever.
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