(AFP) – US President Donald Trump toured a new Florida migrant detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” on Tuesday, boasting about the harsh conditions and joking that the reptilian predators will serve as guards. The $450 million camp has been built on a disused airfield deep in the Florida Everglades and is surrounded by swamps that are home to creatures including alligators and poisonous snakes.
“Very soon this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet,” Trump told reporters. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland and the only way out is really deportation.” The steaming hot, mosquito-infested site is a symbol of the Republican administration’s determination to look tough as it pursues its policy of mass deportations of undocumented migrants. The name “Alligator Alcatraz” is a reference to Alcatraz Island, the former prison in San Francisco, that Trump recently said he wanted to reopen.
– ‘Cops in the form of alligators’ –
Protesters against “Alligator Alcatraz” held the latest in a series of demonstrations outside the site as Trump visited on Tuesday, but the Republican embraced the controversy. “A lot of bodyguards and a lot of cops in the form of alligators — you don’t have to pay them so much,” Trump said. “I wouldn’t want to run through the Everglades for long. It will keep people where they’re supposed to be.”
Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who greeted Trump on the tarmac, said, “we want to cut through bureaucracy… to get the removal of these illegals done.” The 79-year-old Trump admiringly looked at bunk beds in cages made of metal fencing at the facility, which is built to house 1,000 people, but could later be expanded to house 5,000.
When asked earlier in the day if the idea behind the detention center was that people who escaped from it would get eaten by alligators or snakes, Trump answered, “I guess that’s the concept.” Making a zigzagging motion with his hand, he quipped to reporters at the White House: “We’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator, okay? If they escape prison, how to run away. Don’t run in a straight line. Run like this. And you know what? Your chances go up about one percent.”
But after the quips, Trump later embarked on one of his dark diatribes about immigration, saying that he eventually wanted to start deporting criminals who had been naturalized as Americans. “It’s controversial but I couldn’t care less,” he said. He described an influx of undocumented migrants under Democratic predecessor Joe Biden as “disgusting” and falsely conflated most migrants with “sadistic” criminal gangs.
– Environmental concerns –
“Alligator Alcatraz” is the latest in a series of measures designed to portray the Trump administration as tough on migration. It has already sent some undocumented migrants to a mega-jail in El Salvador, and others to the former “War on Terror” prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Environmentalists have also criticized the creation of the camp in the Everglades conservation area.
The Everglades are particularly known as a major habitat for alligators, with an estimated population of around 200,000. They can reach up to 15 feet in length when fully grown. Attacks by alligators on humans are relatively rare in Florida. Across the entire state, there were 453 “unprovoked bite incidents” between 1948 and 2022, 26 of which resulted in human fatalities, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Trump meanwhile insisted his plan for the notorious original Alcatraz jail was still on track, despite California officials saying it would be impractical and expensive. “Conceptual work started six months ago, and various prison development firms are looking at doing it with us. Still a little early, but lots of promise!” Truth said on his Truth Social network.
– Andrew Caballero-Reynolds with Danny Kemp in Washington
© 2024 AFP
