The infamous concentration camp Alligator Alcatraz, or more accurately, Alligator Auschwitz, recently opened up in Southwestern Florida to the migrants set to be deported by the Trump Regime in his crusade against immigrants.

Alligator Auschwitz is on the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport site.

The site is a walking human rights violation, disrespectful to tribal sovereignty, and an ecological disaster, with detainees subjected to poor and unsanitary conditions.

Andrea Pitzer at MSNBC.com on why Alligator Auschwitz can justifiably be called a “concentration camp” (07.05.2025):

For many Americans, the word “concentration camp” evokes another country, a time long ago and a facility operating in the dark of night, away from the prying eyes of an outraged public. But a new concentration camp opened in Florida’s Everglades this week, and it’s the opposite of a secret.

President Donald Trump toured the facility with reporters in tow. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials posed with him, laughing in front of cages meant for human beings. The Florida Republican Party launched merchandise and gave the camp a nickname, “Alligator Alcatraz,” that the state made official.

But it’s not just a new prison, Alcatraz or otherwise. I visited four continents to write a global history of concentration camps. This facility’s purpose fits the classic model: mass civilian detention without real trials targeting vulnerable groups for political gain based on ethnicity, race, religion or political affiliation rather than for crimes committed. And its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.

This camp stands apart from other immigration detention facilities for a few reasons. First, its projected capacity of 5,000 beds is several times the average detention center (though Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking at even larger facilities). Its improvised tents and chain-link cages put detainees on display reminiscent of El Salvador’s CECOT prison. And it is billed as a “temporary” camp, with the theory being that the administration can seamlessly process massive numbers of detainees with rapid-fire judicial hearings by National Guard members-turned-immigration judges. In practice, this is unlikely to go smoothly.

While concentration camps have historical roots in earlier forms of mass detention, they themselves are modern. The patenting and mass production of barbed wire and automatic weapons over a century ago made it possible to detain large groups with a small guard force for the first time.

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Those were all in place before the Nazis came to power, so Hitler’s camps aren’t the lone precedent for the Everglades project. But even the extreme case of Germany offers disturbing parallels — and not just because the Nazis also allowed reporters to tour their camps.

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And there are parallels in U.S. history for these camps as well. Centuries of Indian removal and genocide set the stage for abuse of those not counted as citizens. Lawmakers and courts wielded the weight of law or executive authority to prop up slavery, allowing cross-border trafficking and detention of humans denied rights. Concentration camps holding Japanese Americans during World War II showed the U.S. government was eminently capable of unjust detention of citizens and noncitizens alike. And Trump himself has hailed “Operation Wetback,” a lethal, abuse-filled deportation operation carried out by Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration that included detention camps.

Amy Lambert at Public Theology on the Trump Regime’s “Alligator Alcatraz” concentration camp unleashing horrors that wouldn’t be out of place in Nazi Germany (07.07.2025):

The idea of a concentration camp within the borders of the United States is almost unbelievable.

Almost.

Well, actually, now that I think about it, it’s not.

Our country has been built entirely on the backs of the poor, the marginalized, and the abused. We have been exploiting the bodies of poor, black, brown, and indigenous people for centuries. So while it is jarring to hear the president make jokes about feeding human beings to alligators, the sentiment isn’t new. There is a large contingency of Americans who, in their attempt to “Make America Great Again,” want to rid our country of “the parasite class.”

If you have paid attention to Trump’s rhetoric, this is where he always planned to lead us. His father was a raging racist over a century ago (he was sued by the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ in 1973 for refusing to rent the apartments he owned to non-white tenants), and he spoon fed these hateful ideologies to Donald, who eagerly lapped them up. The Trumps’ racism is deeply based in the field of Eugenics, which Merriam-Webster defines as “the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations (as by sterilization) to improve the populations' genetic composition.”

Alligator Alcatraz (which I wish I had to put in quotes as a slang term but an official government sign has been erected with this title) has opened for business. Our government officials are making jokes about the deplorable conditions and not joking about their hope that some of these “illegals” try to escape and become food for the abundant wildlife whose ecosystem is being threatened yet again by a cruel and greedy administration.

It’s rare that so many violations of human rights and integrity are performed publicly, and with such zeal. The American government has built a “detention facility” in a fragile ecosystem which is sacred to indigenous peoples. This “detention facility” and the agency which supports it (ICE) are blatantly denying the constitutionally protected rights of the people it will imprison while simultaneously ignoring the further damage it will cause to indigenous people who have been fighting for centuries to maintain their way of life on this land.

Jay Kuo at The Status Kuo on Alligator Auschwitz (aka Alligator Alcatraz) as a tool for the Trump Regime’s anti-immigrant cruelty (07.02.2025):

Second, Trump visited a hastily constructed facility in the Florida Everglades that MAGA calls “Alligator Alcatraz.” It’s so named because of the dangerous alligators, crocodiles and pythons in the wetlands around it, which are intended to terrify detainees and deter their escape.

Third, at a press conference yesterday, Trump signaled his intent to weaponize denaturalization of U.S. citizens. Trump was asked what he would do in response to Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to not allow ICE to arrest “criminal aliens” in New York City. Trump responded, “Well, then, we’ll have to arrest him.” He added, “Look, we don’t need a communist in this country,” then threatened Mamdani directly. “A lot of people are saying he’s here illegally. We’re gonna look at everything.”

Make no mistake. Trump’s police state, enforced by unaccountable, anonymous secret police, is quickly taking shape. Our federal legislators are handing him the billions in resources needed to build it, red state governors like Ron DeSantis are constructing concentration camps to hold human beings in wired cages, and Trump is already threatening to strip a political opponent of his U.S. citizenship and deport him.

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While the Senate was busy approving tens of billions for a new police state, Trump took a trip down to Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis was more than happy to partake in a gross spectacle of brutality and racism alongside him.

During the visit, Trump was near giddy with excitement. He reportedly has always wanted to use animals such as snakes and alligators to keep migrants from crossing our Southern border. According to former Trump aide Miles Taylor, during his first term, Trump once even called up his former Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, to tell her he wanted to explore what it would take to build a 2,000 mile moat and fill it with snakes and alligators.

During the detention facility visit, Trump said to reporters, “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland and the only way out is, really, deportation.” He added he “wouldn’t want to run through the Everglades for long” and anyone who attempted to do so would be met by “a lot of cops in the form of alligators.”

The MAGA base treats this camp like some kind of entertainment venue, complete with merchandise. Podcaster Benny Johnson posted a clip to social media enthusiastically promoting “official Alligator Alcatraz merch” while asking his audience whether they would “rock this drip.”

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Deportations have been on Trump’s mind, not only as a way to conduct ethnic cleansing, but as a weapon against his perceived political opponents, rivals and enemies.

Melissa Gira Grant at The New Republic (07.02.2025):

What were you doing the day the president attended the opening of an American concentration camp in the Everglades? Dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by Republican officials because of the predators living in the surrounding swampland, it has been built to cage thousands of people rounded up by ICE and allied law enforcement agencies as part of President Trump’s mass deportations. “‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is a concentration camp,” Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night, a history of concentration camps, said on Tuesday.

That morning, Trump attended the camp’s opening in Ochopee, Florida, along with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. “We’d like to see them in many states,” Trump said at a press conference there. “And at some point, they might morph into a system where you’re going to keep it for a long time.” He complained about the cost of building jails and prisons, then complimented his team, who “did this in less than a week.”

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The American concentration camp on view Tuesday was erected within the Big Cypress National Preserve, traditional Miccosukee land. The tribe was not consulted, said Betty Osceola, a member and activist who lives a few miles from the camp’s entrance. She was one of hundreds of people protesting on the road outside the camp over the last several days as massive trucks streamed into the site. “People should be concerned about the secrecy of this,” Osceola told the Fort Myers News-Press. “It’s a big deal. Our ancestors were laid to rest in this area, and they talk about it like it’s a vast wasteland. It’s not.”

The site of the camp is also public-owned land, most recently occupied by the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, “a remote facility for promising pilots to practice their touch-and-goes amid disinterested herons and alligators,” according to The Palm Beach Post. An executive order issued by DeSantis cited a nonexistent “emergency” to get around the legal process for building on the site.

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There is no reason to believe any of the claims from the Florida and federal governments. The same day the concentration camp opened, ABC News reported that despite Trump’s campaign refrain that his mass deportations would target “criminals,” “new data shows a recent shift toward also arresting those who have not been accused of crimes.” This was foretold by Tom Homan, Trump’s “immigration czar,” who was the face of the mass deportation plan long before Trump returned to the White House. “No one’s off the table,” Homan said at the Republican National Convention last summer. “The bottom line is: Every illegal alien is a criminal. They enter the country in violation of federal law. It’s a crime to enter this country illegally.” Every immigrant—every person the Trump administration said was an immigrant—was a target from the beginning.

Steven Schmidt at The Warning on the sadistic Trump Regime’s vision (07.07.2025):

The noose will tighten and the government will grow comfortable showing its teeth to American citizens, forgetting that we are a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

What is happening in America is both a travesty and a tragedy, but it is happening.

What we are witnessing is surreal, but very real.

The United States of America is about to become a highly militarized society where masked federal agents increasingly abuse their power, the rights of the American people, and the dignity of human beings in their custody.

When hate, power, extremism and arrogance mix the results are always the same.

It produces evil.

It produces death.

The Trump administration will call opponents of this abuse traitors and assert that the abusers are the law.

They will demand obedience and obeisance to the immorality that they have made law, and the violence that is ordered in Trump’s name, but carried out in the name of the American people.

When masked men beat a woman or seize a child from her mother they will declare that it is the dissenter who is the criminal, and the child that is the threat.

They will threaten the protestor with violence and the writer with imprisonment, tax audits, harassment and other degradations all designed to make them follow the law — Trump’s law, America’s new law.

They will say the wrongs and abuses are the law, and attempts to stop it are felonies.

They will say questions are threats, and facts are illegal weapons, but we will know the truth.

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We are Americans. No decent American will tolerate masked Gestapo and concentration camps in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Remember, hating Trump only makes him stronger. We must remember to disdain Trumpism because we love our country, not because we hate the man — though we must despise what he stands for.

Steven Beschloss at America, America on the real purpose of “Alligator Alcatraz” (07.07.2025):

The quickly built concentration camp in Florida, tagged Alligator Alcatraz to amuse and benumb the public, is surely only the first among many now that ICE is flush with resources to pursue its hateful mission. This mass detention and deportation operation has never been simply about removing hardened criminals—a goal that has widespread support—but rather fulfilling Trump’s cruel and malignant desire to turn our country into a white nationalist haven. All Trump’s vile talk of vermin and poisoning of the blood made clear his intentions.

The America that we have known and loved—an inclusive country that recognized the value of diversity, welcomed people from all over the world and took pride in being a land of freedom—can only be rebuilt once this regime has been removed from power. That includes the exit of the despotic ringleader and sycophants like white Christian nationalist Mike Johnson. It will take all of us continuing to protect our neighbors, engage in mass protest and advocate for the millions of hard-working people and their families who came to America seeking a better life.

Michael Tomasky at The New Republic on the use of labor camps (07.07.2025):

Now think about $45 billion for detention camps. Alligator Alcatraz is expected to cost $450 million a year. Right now, a reported 5,000 detainees are being held there. The Trump administration says the new $45 billion will pay for 100,000 beds. So that’s 20 more Alligator Alcatrazes out around the country. But it’s probably even going to be worse than that, because the state of Florida, not the federal government, is footing the bill for that center. If the Trump administration can convince other states to do the same, or pay part of the freight, we’re looking at essentially a string of concentration camps across the United States. Besides, there’s something odd about that $450 million a year price tag. (Here’s an interesting Daily Kos community post asking some good questions about that astronomical cost. The math doesn’t add up.)

Forty-five billion will build a lot of stuff. As a point of comparison: In 2023, the United States budgeted $12.8 billion to build new affordable housing. We’re about to spend nearly four times on detention centers what we spend on housing.

Now let’s turn to Snyder’s thesis. It was, as he acknowledged, mostly conjecture on his part. But think about it. If you’re the type of person who wants to round up thousands upon thousands of people and detain them in inhumane conditions and give them four or five square feet of private space and feed them slop and treat them like animals, isn’t there inevitably going to come a time when you think: Why should these people be sitting around doing nothing all day?

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So no, I’m not overstating things at all. The time to start opposing this is right now. Snyder writes that U.S. employers should be made to sign a pledge that they won’t use camp labor. A fine idea. But someone has to write the pledge and circulate it and make noise about it. Democrats, any takers?

Jay Kuo at The Status Kuo on the horrible and unsanitary conditions of Alligator Auschwitz (07.09.2025):

We were expecting reports like this, and it’s now been confirmed: Everything about Florida’s new immigrant concentration camp is horrifying.

Its proponents call it “Alligator Alcatraz,” while its critics say it’s more like “Alligator Auschwitz.” Whatever name it goes by, the hastily constructed detention center in the Florida Everglades is already drawing intense fire from two separate media reports.

These reports, which came out yesterday, did not get the attention they deserved, so I am amplifying them here. I ask you not to look away, difficult as it is to digest what is happening, and instead face these hard facts squarely. Then I ask, especially if you live in Florida, that you call your state and federal representatives and demand they conduct oversight of the camp.

Anna McAllister of CBS News reported on the inhumane conditions for immigrants now held inside fenced cages in the camp. She spoke directly with Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy La Figura, who was arrested on assault charges. Rather than be kept in a correctional facility, La Figura was transferred to the camp, presumably to await deportation. He has been there since Friday.

“There’s over 400 people here. There’s no water to take a bath, it’s been four days since I’ve taken a bath,” La Figura said. “They only brought a meal once a day and it had maggots. They never take off the lights for 24 hours. The mosquitoes are as big as elephants.”

“They’re not respecting our human rights,” another man McAllister spoke with said on the same phone call. “We’re human beings; we’re not dogs. We’re like rats in an experiment. I don’t know their motive for doing this, if it’s a form of torture. A lot of us have our residency documents and we don’t understand why we’re here,” he added.

A third detainee highlighted the lack of medical care. “I’m on the edge of losing my mind. I’ve gone three days without taking my medicine,” he said. “It’s impossible to sleep with this white light that’s on all day.”

He also said his religious rights were denied. “They took the Bible I had and they said here there is no right to religion. And my Bible is the one thing that keeps my faith, and now I’m losing my faith,” he said.

Ana Ceballos, Alex Harris and Claire Healy of the Miami Herald separately confirmed the terrible conditions at the camp: toilets that didn’t flush, temperatures from freezing to sweltering, giant mosquitoes, little or no access to bathing facilities, and no confidential calls with attorneys.

This was based on separate interviews the Herald conducted with the wives of detainees from Guatemala and Venezuela.

“Why would we treat a human like that?” asked one woman whose husband was being held inside. “They come here for a better life. I don’t understand. We are supposed to be the greatest nation under God, but we forget that we’re under God.”

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A test of our limits, and our courage

As it was with the CECOT maximum security prison in El Salvador—where immigrants with no connection to criminal gang activity nor any criminal record whatsoever were sent without so much as a hearing—the Everglades concentration camp is a test. It’s a test of the limits of our laws. It’s a test of the tolerance of our nation to abuses and atrocities now being committed against our most vulnerable populations.

Alligator Auschwitz is nothing more than a stain and a blot on American values and human rights. The concentration camp should be shut down, not replicated across other states.