Hundreds of protesters lined U.S. Highway 41 on Saturday, decrying the construction of a high security immigrant detention center in the heart of the Florida Everglades, a facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
The protest, which stretched along the Tamiami Trail near Ochopee, drew Native American tribal leaders, environmental activists, and local residents united in opposition to what they call an ecological and cultural affront. The facility, which is being constructed on a long-abandoned airfield, is designed to house up to 1,000 detainees as part of President Donald Trump’s expanded immigration enforcement policies.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the project earlier this month, citing the need for additional space to house criminal aliens pending deportation. The facility will be surrounded by natural barriers, including wetlands, dense vegetation, and local wildlife — hence the “Alligator Alcatraz” nickname.
“The Miami-Dade Collier Training Facility – this is an old, virtually abandoned airport facility right in the middle of the Everglades,” Uthmeier told Florida’s Voice. “Florida’s been leading on immigration enforcement, supporting the Trump administration and ICE efforts to detain and deport criminal aliens.”
He continued, “It presents an efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter,” he told the outlet. “People get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.”
While many Floridians support stricter immigration enforcement, Saturday’s protest highlighted concerns from stakeholders who feel the site selection poses unnecessary risks to culturally significant land and the surrounding ecosystem.
Protesters carried signs and American flags as dump trucks rumbled past, transporting materials to the construction site. In footage shared widely on social media, demonstrators can be seen invoking both environmental and spiritual themes.
One woman said, “I don’t know if any of you have been to a spiritual place, or maybe you go to church to find that spiritual place, or wherever your spiritual place is, find it in your hearts to pray for these people who are lost so that they can become human beings again. Cause if they’re human beings again, this will stop.”
Of course, the woman’s “plea” may be ineffective, as the argument could me made that she’s responding to what she perceives as the dehumanization of immigrants with the dehumanization of her political opponents.
The area is home to sacred Native American ceremonial grounds, and protest leaders argue the facility could disrupt both cultural heritage and wildlife. Environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Everglades, filed a lawsuit Friday to temporarily halt construction, warning that the Everglades’ delicate water system could suffer long-term harm.
READ NEXT: Trump Admin Greenlights ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ For ICE Detainees
Not a single one of those ‘protesters ‘ would be willing to take in one of those ‘immigrants’ while they are being processed for the deportation that goes along with being here illegally. Nor have any of them come up with a viable solution to housing them during the deportation process, much less a solution to stop illegal incursions. They apparently only want to just let them go.
What we have hear is a failure to communicate