“If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons.”
That’s what Florida‘s attorney general has said about the new ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention centre in the southern US state.
It is a symbol of the White House’s determination to deport migrants from America which it says do not have a right to be in the country.
Located on a mostly abandoned airport once built to house supersonic jets, detainees would have to “know how to run away from an alligator” to escape the facility, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.
But for critics, it’s a dehumanising “theatricalisation of cruelty” that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to run each year.
What is Alligator Alcatraz?
The Dade-Collier airport was once destined to be the world’s largest airport and would have been five times the size of New York City’s JFK, but it never fulfilled its potential.
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Instead, the 39-square-mile facility located about 50 miles from Miami has been used as a training facility for years – until now.
“This is an old, virtually abandoned airport facility right in the middle of the Everglades,” Florida’s attorney general James Uthmeier said as he introduced it last month. “I call it: Alligator Alcatraz.”
He touted it as an “efficient, low-cost opportunity” to build a “temporary” detention centre “because you don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter”.
It’s believed that the facility could house 5,000 detainees when up and running and, according to CNN, will cost $450m (£328m) annually.
Mr Uthmeier added: “If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.”
People sent there will be housed in repurposed Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) emergency trailers and “soft-sided temporary facilities”.
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Trump visits new facility
“This is not a nice business,” Mr Trump said while leaving the White House. Then he joked that “we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison”, ahead of visiting the centre.
“Don’t run in a straight line. Run like this,” he said, as he moved his hand in a zigzag motion. “And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%.” According to the University of Florida, it’s actually best to dash in one direction in the rare situation when an alligator chases you.
Mr Trump is using ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ as a symbol of his border crackdown.
He wants to pressure Congress to pass a sweeping spending bill this week which would ramp up deportations.
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Immigrants ‘do not deserve’ to be at facility
There has been heavy criticism of the detention centre from Democrats and activists, with protesters often gathering nearby.
Former congressman David Jolly, an ex-Republican who is now running for Florida governor as a Democrat, called the facility a “callous political stunt”.
“The fact that we’re going to have 3,000 people detained in tents, in the Everglades, in the middle of the hot Florida summer, during hurricane season, this is a bad idea all around that needs to be opposed and stopped,” Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst for the Florida Immigrant Coalition said, according to CNN.
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“It’s like a theatricalisation of cruelty,” immigration activist Maria Asuncion Bilbao said.
Phyllis Andrews, a retired teacher who travelled to the area to protest against Mr Trump’s visit, said: “I have a lot of immigrants I have been working with. They are fine people. They do not deserve to be incarcerated here.
“It’s terrible that there’s a bounty on their head.”
