Trump's USA The border issue

Trump: Only deportation will get you out of "Alligator Alcatraz"

Donald Trump today got a tour of the controversial migrant detention center that has been nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz". And the president seems to have liked what he saw, several media outlets report.

The detention center is built in the enormous Florida Everglades, known for being home to alligators, crocodiles, venomous snakes and other animals you'd rather not encounter.

- We're surrounded by miles and miles of swampland. The only way out is deportation, Trump said during the tour.

Human rights groups warn of the overcrowding in the country's immigration system, but do not think a detention center surrounded by alligators is the solution.

- They've obviously chosen the most controversial place imaginable, says Thomas Kennedy, spokesman for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, to The Guardian.

Indigenous people protest: “It’s a place to heal”

The protests against the new migrant detention center in the Everglades in Florida have sparked protests among environmental groups and human rights organizations. BBC Mundo reports. Among other things, there is strong criticism that undocumented immigrants will be sent to the facility’s temporary buildings and tents in the middle of the hot summer.

The state’s indigenous people are also critical, saying that the facility is being built on what they see as sacred land. They also fear that the delicate ecosystem will be damaged.

“It’s a place we come to heal, where we come to pray,” Betty Osceola, a prominent member of the Miccosukee tribe, told NBC News.

Hundreds of protesters have been protesting for several weeks. According to state Governor Ron DeSantis, more detention centers like this one may be built in the future.

Analysis: "New detention center brings back dark memories – but the White House loves the message"

It is not surprising that Donald Trump chooses to travel to Florida for the inauguration of a new migrant detention center, hastily built and located far away in the Everglades National Park. This is what CNN's Stephen Collinson writes in an analysis.

The name alone – "Alligator Alcatraz" – is enough to attract Trump there, he notes. Collinson writes that the dark associations with detention camps do not concern the White House.

"On the contrary, people love the way it looks, and are excited by an almost caricatured image of a draconian outpost in the middle of the wilderness, patrolled by carnivorous reptiles and poisonous snakes."

CBS News' Camilo Montoya-Galvez says the administration wants to send a message to undocumented immigrants that they could be sent to a swamp in the middle of Florida and then deported. He says the detention center also serves a practical purpose for ICE, which is running out of space to hold the 59,000 migrants arrested in recent raids.
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