A newly built detention center in the Everglades
The state-run and federally approved immigration detention center Alligator Alcatraz opened on July 1 .Cuban-born politicians in Miami supported its construction. Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who oversaw torture of captives at Guantanamo Bay, is the head of Alligator Alcatraz.
The detention camp spans 30 square miles, is surrounded by 28,000 feet of barbed wire, has 30-foot walls and its own backup generator.
Over 400 guards, each paid $3,000 per week, and 1,000 staff are on its payroll. There is an initial capacity of 3,000 beds, with a planned expansion to 5,000. Members of the U.S. National Guard will serve as immigration judges.
So, it is a prison, a courthouse and an airfield combined—streamlining deportation so the Trump administration can meet its goal of deporting one million people per year.
This didn’t start with DeSantis or Trump
DeSantis boasts about his supposed innovation. However, the Obama administration laid the foundation for migrant detention camps in the U.S.
In 2014, Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, another neocolonial servant, led the construction of a similar detention facility. Even the floor plan is similar.
So, the Democrats’ selective concern is meaningless. Only when Trump and the Republicans do it do the Democrats express outrage. But we know both parties are part of the North American ruling class—enemies of colonized people.
Alligator Alcatraz is flagrant theft
The $450 million annual cost of Alligator Alcatraz is expected to be funded by FEMA. The state of Florida will cover the initial costs and submit a reimbursement request to FEMA and DHS. But reimbursement is unlikely, so Florida residents will foot the bill.
It costs taxpayers $89,425 per year to imprison one detainee.
Of the nine contractors involved, three have donated to DeSantis’ campaign for governor. The executives of those companies sit on the board of DeSantis’ wife’s charity. These contractors stand to make millions. Alabama and Louisiana are building their own versions; the North American ruling class and their cronies benefit.
A concentration camp in plain view
Before Hondurans, Salvadorans, Haitians, Mexicans and others were deported and sent to mega-prisons in El Salvador, Guantanamo or ICE facilities in U.S. colonial prisons, these places were mostly seen only by the families of the incarcerated. But this facility is different.
It is highly public on a national level. They brag about the height of the walls, its scale and its security.
Their supporters gleefully film vans full of detainees and salivate over the idea of escapees being eaten by alligators.
There is a well-known history of colonizers using African children as bait for alligators. The fate the colonizer wishes for colonized people—whether domestic or migrant—remains the same.
The colonizers want to terrorize in secret
At the same time, DeSantis presents Alligator Alcatraz as a humane facility with air conditioning, where detainees don’t sleep on the floor, and where there are showers and a pharmacy, to ward off public scrutiny.
But it’s similar to Guantanamo Bay and torture centers in African communities—where daily brutality is hidden from public view.
Florida lawmakers were denied entry one day after detainees arrived.
Even though the colonizers enjoy the idea of detainees being surrounded by 18-foot alligators, they clearly fear negative press about how they’re running the concentration camp.
Seized land belongs to Indigenous people
The DeSantis administration is being sued by environmental groups, who claim this is a seizure of state land. But the detention center is on Miccosukee land. The Miccosukee and Seminole nations protested this latest theft.
This must be understood in the context of 500 years of colonial land theft. What’s illegitimate is not just the land grab, but the U.S. itself—not that it’s “state” land.
Alligator Alcatraz is an expression of the colonial State
Chairman Omali Yeshitela defines police, courthouses and prisons as the coercive arm of the State. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a county jail, a penitentiary, a private for-profit prison or a detention camp—they all exert power over those without State power.
In Hurricane-Prone Florida, Alligator Alcatraz is a death camp
On July 3, the detention center started flooding. They claim it was built in eight days to withstand a category 2 hurricane. But the FEMA tents and trailers aren’t built for hurricanes.
Florida doesn’t typically evacuate prisons during hurricanes. It’s no coincidence that Temporary Protected Status was revoked for 500,000 Haitians, Venezuelans and Cubans the same week the concentration camp was built.
Trump-aligned influencers even joked about throwing all 65 million “Latinos”—a term used for colonized people across the Americas—into the swamp. This is no different than the U.S. Angola prison, where Africans were worked to death. These are death camps.
The fragmenting of unity with the U.S. imperialist State
Anti-colonial forces already knew the U.S. government was a violent colonial force regardless of who led it. But Alligator Alcatraz is causing some breakaway from forces that once supported U.S. colonialism.
Some reactionary Venezuelans and Cubans now realize they are the “criminals” the U.S. means. Environmentalists are horrified by the destruction of protected marshlands. Some Trump voters who claimed to support him for “anti-corruption” now see they’ve been duped.
Fewer people are buying the lie that this is about public safety. They see it’s about the North American ruling class clinging to power.
Way forward is through anti-colonial organization
We answer colonial escalation with organization. We stand with Indigenous people reclaiming stolen land. We make sure colonized communities are informed and ready to resist State attacks.
The U.S.’s brazen genocidal enthusiasm doesn’t show strength—it reveals the deep weakness of colonialism.
HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!
UHURU!
