Trump’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ reveals the ongoing cruelty towards migrants in US

After the cruelty, the mockery. As the first detainees were being hauled into Donald Trump’s controversial migrant jail in the inhospitable, steamy wetlands of the Florida Everglades last week, his supporters were indulging in some parallel retail therapy.

“Surrounded by swamps & pythons, it’s a one-way ticket to regret,” the Florida Republican party’s official X account crowed, hawking its new range of Alligator Alcatraz-themed shirts and hats. “Grab our merch to support tough-on-crime borders! Limited supply – get yours before the gators do!”

The blatant and brutish grift on the back of the plight of America’s undocumented is neither new nor surprising to those who have watched Florida’s full-on assault on migrants and immigration rights in recent years, led by its hard-right Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.

They remember how he used Florida taxpayers’ money for a stunt baiting dozens of Venezuelans to board a flight in Texas with false promises of accommodation and jobs, then dumped them in Massachusetts, promptly followed by the launch of a line of sardonic “DeSantis Airlines – bringing the border to you” apparel, drinks glasses and coffee mugs.

“Again, it proves that cruelty was always the point,” Maxwell Frost, a Democratic Florida congressman, told the Guardian after the president and governor visited the swamp on Tuesday to boast about how awful the camp will be for those held there.

“Selling hats and merchandise for a place that is about to become a hell on earth for thousands of people who are going to be subjected to some of the worst conditions and human rights abuses you could think of is disgusting.

“These are human beings being held in a tent in the middle of the Everglades, where temperatures are 90F to 100F daily, and hurricane season is an ever-present threat. We saw a run-of-the-mill Florida rainstorm cause flooding on the day that Trump and DeSantis touted the facility. We saw water pouring in and tents shaking because of some slight rain.

“The hats, the facility, the press conferences and media interviews – this is all one fun, cruel, disgusting game to them. To treat people like animals, like they’re less than, because they were not born in this country. And the truth is that they don’t care about the human lives they will harm and potentially kill because of their actions.”

To other observers, Trump’s high-visibility visit – his tour of the site flanked by DeSantis and homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, and his scornful advice to any escaping detainee that they would need to learn to zigzag instead of run in a straight line from any pursuing alligator – was the ultimate example of performance over policy.

“This is Donald Trump 101. Come up with a catchy phrase, and market the heck out of the merch,” said Michael Binder, professor of political science and public administration at the University of North Florida.

“I certainly think that is much more about the show than the actual usage of a detention center. Will they hold a bunch of people there? Probably. Will it ever get entirely packed? Maybe. And it’s also true that more detention centers are probably going to be needed if they’re going to keep rounding people up.

“So theoretically it makes sense. The show provides immediate political benefit. The risk they’re taking is down the road.”

Binder cited the example of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the botched federal response by the George W Bush administration to a disaster that killed more than a thousand mostly Black and low-income residents in New Orleans.

“What happens if something goes wrong at one of these camps? They’re built presumably with aluminum pipes and some tarps. This is Florida, right? We get hurricanes. If you have a hurricane run through there, I think it’s gone,” he said.

“The air conditioning is going to be limited at best. It’s hot in the summer. What happens if people start dying? These are things that can really turn poorly. If you think about Katrina, and the black eye that put on the Bush administration, if it happened in 2003 instead of 2005 it’s probable they wouldn’t have been re-elected.

“These things can have real consequences if the national narrative turns exceptionally negative.”

Any such consequences are unlikely to concern Trump or DeSantis, both of whom have extolled the harshest possible conditions for immigrant detainees, while being termed out at the conclusion of their respective current terms in office.

In DeSantis’s case, however, some see his full-throated backing for Trump’s immigration agenda, Alligator Alcatraz and the warp-speed effort that turned it from a simple idea to operational facility inside 10 days as evidence of his determination to be in the mix for the 2028 presidential election despite his dismal 2024 effort.

“While his time in Florida is on the clock, he certainly has eyes on going back to Iowa in a couple of years, and staying relevant in the national spotlight is vitally important to him,” Binder said.

“Keeping his name in the press, in the media, around an issue that his base thinks is important, is certainly useful to that end.”

An alliance of immigration advocates, environmental groups, and the Miccosukee and Seminole Native American tribes that oppose Alligator Alcatraz says that DeSantis’s race to build the camp – which state officials have said could hold up to 5,000 detainees and 1,000 staff at capacity – threatens not only area residents, but also the fragile wetlands he has claimed to champion.

“Development of this scale at this location requires massive changes to an ecologically delicate landscape, including running huge generators, trucking in massive amounts of food and water, and trucking out waste,” Melissa Abdo, Sun Coast regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association, said.

“Communities in the area, as well as the people detained and working at this facility, could all be at serious risk if the need arose to quickly evacuate from a hurricane, using only a single two-lane highway that’s currently under construction.”

Representative Frost said he shares critics’ fears, and highlighted the choice of the camp’s remote location, which is popular with hunters and outdoorsmen.

“For people like Trump, DeSantis and Noem, this is a sick game of hunting, kidnapping, harming and discarding human beings,” he said.

“It was never about helping Americans or putting our country first. What we’re seeing is pure hatred and disdain for human beings because of the color of their skin and where they were born.”