Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis officially opened the gates to the state’s latest innovation in immigration enforcement: “Alligator Alcatraz.” It’s a no-frills detention center for illegal immigrants amid the Everglades, which is a sounder option for enhanced border protection than paying for luxury hotels on the taxpayer dime.
This week, President Donald Trump toured the facility, located at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee. The facility is designed to detain, process, and deport undocumented migrants. It is situated in a remote, swampy area surrounded by “Wild America’s” alligators and pythons, thus providing “natural security”.
Trump raved about the facility’s quick construction as he scanned rows of dozens of empty bunk beds enclosed in cages and warned about the threatening conditions surrounding the facility.”I looked outside and that’s not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon,” Trump said at a roundtable event after his tour. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland and the only way out is really deportation.”The complex in southern Florida at the Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport is estimated to cost $450 million annually and could house some 5,000 people, officials estimate.Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has said he will send 100 National Guard troops there and that people could start arriving to the facility as soon as Wednesday.
Trump was joined by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and as well as DeSantis. The vision of being encamped in the swamp with Florida’s famous heat and humidity is part of the incentive package to self-deport.
In a roundtable alongside Mr. Trump, Noem told people who are in the country illegally and who may be watching on TV that they can still “self-deport” and get the chance to return to the United States legally in the future.”If you don’t, you may end up here,” Noem said. “And you may end up here and being processed, deported out of this country, and never get the chance to come back.”DeSantis echoed Noem’s message. “Why would you want to come through ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ if you can just go home on your own?” DeSantis said. ” I think a lot of people are going to make that decision.”
Trump also endorsed a proposal by DeSantis to deputize members of the Florida National Guard as immigration judges in an effort to expedite deportations at the new state-run immigration detention center.
“He didn’t even have to ask me. He has my approval,” Trump said during a roundtable discussion at the immigration detention center in the Everglades.DeSantis on Monday said having the National Guard work as immigration judges on site at the detention center could fast-track deportations.On Tuesday, DeSantis said his goal was to cut through “bureaucracy.”Unlike federal judges, who work for the judicial branch and are independent of the president, immigration judges work under the direction of the U.S. attorney general.
Of course, no Trump policy…on any issue…would be complete without the weeping and complaining of the usual suspects.
A coalition of environmental groups on Friday sued over the Trump administration’s plans to build a detention center in the Everglades that critics have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”The suit seeks to block the Trump administration from building the new facility on a Florida airfield, the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport (TNT) near Big Cypress National Preserve.“This massive detention center will blight one of the most iconic ecosystems in the world,” said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement.
Hopefully all Trump’s plans to disincentivize illegal immigrations will prove successful, and court-orders will not stop innovative approaches. But what ever the outcome, the memes have been glorious.
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