The Everglades Detention Center, painfully dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” is a dangerous, dehumanizing experiment. After being nearly shut down with no new transfers due to a lawsuit, the facility was reopened following an appeals court ruling that stayed the original decision as the legal case continues in the courts.
“Alligator Alcatraz” is just the latest experiment within a much larger system. This system is as cruel as it is unnecessary, one that prolongs and profits off the suffering of immigrants and people seeking safety. And the experiment of states partnering with ICE, like in the case of “Alligator Alcatraz,” is a new dangerous direction.
Backing up: No one should be locked up in immigration detention centers in the first place. Migration is not a crime. Under U.S. law, being undocumented is a civil issue, not a criminal act. Mass immigration detention for the simple purpose of immigration processing is arbitrary and violates international law. Yet every day, people are being torn from their families and communities, locked behind bars, and denied their rights. These individuals are not strangers. They are our neighbors. Our coworkers. Our loved ones. They are parents, children, aunts and uncles. They are essential and wonderful parts of our communities. Instead of being able to live with freedom, dignity, and safety, it is despicable that our government is tearing immigrants from their families and communities and putting them in cages.
A cruel system, supercharged
Immigration detention has long been a stain on the U.S. human rights record. But under the Trump administration, this cruelty has been taken to new extremes.
In August alone, an unprecedented 60,000 people were held in immigration detention on any given day. These are people who have lived in the U.S. for decades, may have arrived in recent years to exercise their right to seek safety, and everywhere in between. They are our friends, our neighbors, and people who believed in the promise of safety, security, and a new life.
The Trump administration is doubling down on terrorizing immigrants in their communities and forcing them to live in fear. This increase in people locked up in immigrant detention centers is part of a broader, calculated campaign to expand mass detention and dehumanize immigrant communities.
“Alligator Alcatraz” is just the tip of the iceberg
“Alligator Alcatraz” is part of this dangerous new anti-immigrant campaign: Florida diverted state disaster preparedness funds to build and operate this federal immigration prison, with hopes to be reimbursed by the federal government later. That’s right—money meant to help communities prepare for and respond to hurricanes is used to lock people up. Using disaster relief money for incarceration isn’t just wrong, it’s reckless and puts entire communities at risk.
This facility is one piece of a much larger anti-immigrant agenda: ICE raids, deputizing local law enforcement agencies as immigration officials, racial profiling, attacks on asylum seekers, deportations to third countries, and the public targeting of immigrant organizers and protestors.
None of it is about making anyone safer. It’s about making people afraid. It’s about control.
This is cruelty by design.
A dangerous precedent: states as ICE’s partners
“Alligator Alcatraz” is an example of the administration’s tactic of enlisting state governments, and state taxpayer dollars, to do ICE’s work. Other states, including Indiana and Nebraska, are looking to replicate this deeply flawed and cruel approach.
States partnering with ICE to operate immigration prisons is a deeply troubling precedent. It blurs the lines of accountability and gives ICE even more unchecked power. People inside these state facilities often have no access to family, lawyers, or even an immigration court to fight for their freedom. They are detained for the sake of cruelty. That’s it.
Let’s be clear: no state should be in the business of detaining immigrants. Period.
State leaders must reject this role. State and local governments should not be ICE’s enforcers. Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, and one that is already riddled with abuse. Handing it off to states and local governments opens the door to even less oversight, less accountability, and even more systemic harm.
This is cruelty, not a punchline
The Trump administration’s cruelty is not limited to policies, it’s in the rhetoric, too.
Giving detention centers names like “Alligator Alcatraz,” “Speedway Slammer,” “Cornhuskers Clink,” or “Deportation Depot” is cruel and dehumanizing.
Making jokes out of human suffering and human rights violations normalizes abuse and denies people’s humanity. These names, and the memes we’ve seen, don’t reflect the seriousness of what’s happening. A human rights crisis must never be made light of or turned into a punchline.
Rampant abuse, well-documented
Human rights abuses in immigration detention centers are well-known and well-documented, including by Amnesty International. Earlier this year at an ICE facility in El Paso, we found violations ranging from physical abuse by guards and the denial of medical care to obstruction of legal access.
Immigrant detention facilities, like “Alligator Alcatraz,” are plagued by numerous issues, sometimes including:
- Inhumane conditions: filthy and unsanitary environments, nonworking toilets, limited access to showers, maggots in food, and severe overcrowding.
- Lack of medical care: people are routinely denied necessary medical treatment, or their ailments are ignored.
- Barriers to legal help: many are cut off from lawyers, limiting their ability to challenge their confinement or make progress in their immigration cases. Lawyers representing people detained at “Alligator Alcatraz” are arguing that both state and federal officials are not allowing adequate legal access, blocking them from being able to effectively represent their clients.
- Other abuse: from verbal and physical abuse by guards, sexual and medical abuse, to overuse of solitary confinement, abuse in immigration detention has been normalized and unchecked.
- Psychological harm: the trauma of being isolated, dehumanized, and neglected leaves deep and lasting wounds.
Furthermore, the lack of accountability is unacceptable. The Miami Herald has reported that the “whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during the month of July could not be determined.”
Racist, arbitrary, and illegal
Mass immigration detention in the U.S. is unjustifiable. It is rooted in racism, built on false narratives, and maintained through fear.
Detaining people solely based on immigration status is arbitrary and violates international human rights law. The system disproportionately targets Black and brown immigrants and perpetuates white supremacist ideologies masked as policy.
No matter what you hear from the Trump administration, this is not about public safety.
We need a different path
We are at a crossroads. The U.S. government can either continue down a path of cruelty, fear, and systemic abuse, or choose a future rooted in dignity, compassion, and justice.
We all want to live in safe, strong communities. But detention and deportation tear families apart, traumatize communities, and waste billions in taxpayer money.
We must invest in systems that support people, not harm them – affordable housing, education, healthcare, and public infrastructure.
Mass detention is not the answer. It never was.
It’s time to permanently shut down “Alligator Alcatraz” and stop the expansion of immigrant detention centers.