Trump admin threatens to unleash alligators on immigrants in preview of new ICE facility
The Trump administration is barreling ahead with plans to build a colossal immigration detention camp in the depths of the Florida Everglades - a compound dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz.'
The Department of Homeland Security brazenly stoked fear with an AI-generated meme showing snarling alligators in ICE baseball caps patrolling the swampy grounds of the future facility.
The meme, posted on Saturday to X with the tagline 'Coming soon!', sent shockwaves through immigrant advocacy groups who denounced it as state-sponsored psychological warfare.
Former US diplomat Brett Bruen slammed the stunt as a 'horrendous lack of humanity,' while national security expert Christopher Burgess called the post 'disgusting.'
The plan for the $450 million-a-year complex envisions housing up to 1,000 migrants on a remote, 39-square-mile plot of marshland surrounding a defunct pilot airstrip in the Everglades, a habitat crawling with thousands of hungry pythons and an estimated 200,000 alligators.
Supporters of the project, including Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, insist the swamp's lethal wildlife will function as a budget-friendly security measure to deter escape attempts.
Uthmeier, a 37-year-old hardliner dubbed 'Bulldog' by allies, made no apologies in a slick, rock-music-laced promotional video touting the terrifying natural 'moat.'
'No one's getting out,' he declared triumphantly, describing the snake- and gator-infested perimeter as a 'force multiplier' to keep detainees in line.
The Department of Homeland Security brazenly stoked fear with an AI-generated meme showing snarling alligators in ICE baseball caps patrolling the swampy grounds of the future facility dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz.'
'Virtually escape-proof,' he boasted on X, claiming the plan would save taxpayer dollars on fencing and guards. 'If you get out, there's not much waiting for you except alligators and pythons.'
The dystopian blueprint evokes President Trump's own suggestions during his first term of digging a medieval moat filled with deadly creatures along the southern border wall.
Now, his administration appears to be giving that idea fresh legs (and scales) by threatening to move vulnerable migrants into a swampy no-man's-land patrolled by apex predators.
Democrats and immigrant rights organizations erupted in outrage, accusing the administration of pushing a sadistic spectacle straight out of a horror film.
'This is not a joke - this is state-sponsored intimidation,' one activist fumed online. 'We are treating human beings like prey.'
Meanwhile, environmental defenders have raced to file lawsuits against what they see as an ecological nightmare.
The Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity argue the project could devastate a fragile wetland ecosystem that taxpayers have spent billions to protect, including habitat critical to the endangered Florida panther.
'The site is over 96 percent wetlands, surrounded by a national preserve, with incredible biodiversity,' warned Eve Samples, head of Friends of the Everglades to CBS News. 'This plan is not only cruel, it's an environmental disaster waiting to happen.'
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava also fired off a letter warning that construction would proceed without adequate study of environmental impacts, financial risks, or public safety.
Yet the Trump-aligned forces behind the proposal appear determined to push forward, brushing off criticism as left-wing hysteria.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's office insisted the swamp-based facility would be a 'force multiplier' for mass deportations, while hawking 'Alligator Alcatraz' T-shirts, baseball caps, and beverage coolers online for between $15 and $30.
State and federal officials have pointed to the abandoned airstrip as a key logistical benefit, making it easier to fly detainees straight into the swamp instead of busing them from facility to facility.
'This is the best one,' Uthmeier boasted. 'It's the one-stop shop for President Trump's mass deportation mission.'
The idea has sparked fierce backlash, with critics condemning it over environmental risks and calling out the inhumane conditions of detaining people in such camps, not to mention being surrounded by dangerous wildllfe
Civil rights groups say the plan amounts to turning the Everglades into a weapon of fear.
'They are literally weaponizing nature against migrants,' a former immigration official said in disbelief. 'This is not a security measure. This is a grotesque form of punishment.'
For now, court challenges have slowed the project, but Uthmeier and DeSantis remain defiant, promising they will bulldoze ahead in the name of 'warrior culture' and border security.
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