OCHOPEE, Fla. — The mosquitoes were out in full force just before the sun rose on Tuesday in the Everglades. The shoulders of the two-lane road were packed with cars of media members doing live shots outside the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, now known as Alligator Alcatraz.
Alligator Alcatraz has made waves in Florida and across the nation because within eight days, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration worked with the Department of Homeland Security to build a temporary holding facility at the remote airport. While the site has many advantages, a primary deterrent from escape attempts or interference from open-border radicals are the state’s famous swamps and the wildlife that resides in them.
‘Voters in those states will go to their elected officials, “Hey, why aren’t you helping the president like Florida’s doing?”‘
In attendance at Tuesday’s grand opening of the facility were President Donald Trump, DeSantis, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and numerous state and federal officials. They presented a unified front to say: This holding site is operational, and if illegal aliens do not want to be held there, they can self-deport.
“They don’t have to come here. If they self-deport and go home, they can come back legally,” Noem explained. “But if you wait and we bring you to this facility, you don’t ever get to come back to America. You don’t get the chance to come back and be an American again.”
Photo (left): Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Photo (right): Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images
Alligator Alcatraz is expected to hold up to 3,000 detainees, with first arrivals expected this week. Another state-run site near Jacksonville at Camp Blanding will hold 2,000 detainees. Most of those held in the sites are projected to be illegal immigrants who were arrested in Florida. The hardened tents are equipped with air conditioning, medical and legal staff are on hand, and detainees have access to showers and bathrooms. None of the wastewater will flow into the Everglades, being trucked out instead.
Trump praised DeSantis’ Florida for setting the pace of cooperating with the federal government to help with mass deportations.
DeSantis is calling on Alligator Alcatraz to be a one-stop shop for the removal process of illegal aliens. Not only can they be processed out of the country there, the airstrip is also able to accommodate federal deportation flights.
When asked by Blaze Media whether other Republican-run states have reached out to his administration to learn how to set up something similar in their jurisdictions, DeSantis said not yet, as of Tuesday, but Trump’s attendance at the grand opening will surely push the issue forward around the nation.
“When [Trump’s] here saying this is going to be mission-critical, saying this is a force multiplier, then what will happen is voters in those states will go to their elected officials, ‘Hey, why aren’t you helping the president like Florida’s doing?’ … Maybe they can’t do as much as Florida, but if they even did a little bit, it makes a difference, and this stuff adds up,” DeSantis said.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, whose office led the creation of Alligator Alcatraz, told Blaze Media he wished people who were baselessly calling the detention site a “concentration camp” had more sympathy for the victims of illegal aliens.
“A couple weeks ago, we announced a lifetime sentence for an illegal immigrant that had grossly sexually abused a minor, a young girl, and trafficked her out to other people. These are the crimes we’re seeing. At the end of the day, we believe in law and order. We’re going to enforce immigration law,” Uthmeier said.
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Alligator alcatraz, Florida, Ron desantis, Donald trump, Kristi noem, Stephen miller, Illegal immigration, Illegal alien, Alligators, Everglades, Politics
