Radio Cadena Agramonte emisiora de Camagüey
Moscow, July 1 – The opening of the controversial Alligator Alcatraz prison has sparked controversy and outrage in the US, as it is considered a makeshift and inhumane prison camp aimed at radicalizing the Trump administration's anti-immigrant policies and intensifying mass deportations, AP reported.
The new migrant detention center has also sparked protests because authorities located it in the middle of the Everglades, one of the largest wetlands in the US, which presents a harsh environment, plagued by mosquitoes, alligators, crocodiles, and python snakes.
The prison facility was established on the premises of an old isolated airfield, 72 kilometers west of Miami, Florida. The conditions will be the worst for the people who are detained. They will be detained in tents, trailers and temporary buildings.
However, the Trump administration, which will officially open the facility this Tuesday, is defending the site as a national model for aggressively intensifying detention and deportation efforts.
Both the governor of Florida, Republican Ron DeSantis, and the attorney general of that state, James Uthmeier, justify the detention center and its name, which is inspired by the famed and closed federal prison of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay, California. In that order, they believe the conditions of the facility will help deter and pressure people without legal status to leave the US. voluntarily.
The promotion of the prison includes an avalanche of information on social media about the facility, known for being infested with crocodiles. There is even an image circulating, created using artificial intelligence and published by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), showing several alligators wearing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) caps.
According to local press reports, the Alligator Alcatraz will cost $450 million annually. The costs will initially be covered by Florida and later reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The facility will have a capacity of approximately 5,000 people.
Its construction was carried out by an emergency decree based on an executive order issued years ago by Governor DeSantis, which helped circumvent customary laws and regulations. Critics consider this context an abuse of power.
For their part, activists and human rights organizations, including environmentalists, immigrant advocates, and indigenous leaders, have mobilized in protest to denounce the appalling conditions at the site and to speak out in favor of protecting the wetlands and the ancestral lands of indigenous communities.
Betty Osceola, a member of the Miccosukee tribe, recalled that 15 indigenous communities, Miccosukee and Seminole, are present in the Everglades area. In addition, there are ancestral and ceremonial sites located within the Big Cypress National Preserve, where the airfield is located.
For their part, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of the Everglade association filed a lawsuit on Friday to stop plans for the detention center, given the complex situation created by Trump’s immigration policy, which his critics consider supremacist.
Meanwhile, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem praised the prison because she believes it will help increase the number of places to hold immigrant detainees. She says the number of beds nationwide will increase from 41,000 to at least 100,000. Meanwhile, the opening of Alligator Alcatraz promises to further fuel the already complex and divisive discussion about US immigration policy. (Text and photo: RT)
