It was the discovery that it’s not only possible, but easy, to buy merchandise that says “Alligator Alcatraz” that sent me tumbling off the edge of despair all the way into the abyss. People—lots of people–are spending good money for caps and t-shirts and beer koozies that advertise the newly-built migrant detention facility in the Everglades and then laughing about it.
It would seem that cruelty is the point.
Cruelty that began in earnest back in January when Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency goons went to work fighting “government waste.” The list of agencies they indiscriminately slashed or eliminated is too long to fit in a 650-word column, but the first that comes to my mind is the United States Agency for International Development.
Since its inception in 1961, USAID has prevented the deaths of 91 million people, many of them children, by working tirelessly to alleviate hunger and disease in third world countries. When Musk brought the hammer down on the agency, whose budget was a miniscule percentage of the federal budget, perfectly good food and medicine was allowed to spoil on cargo ships and in warehouses instead of being delivered to those in need. The “cut-the-fat” crowd pumped their fists and cheered. Estimates are that these cuts will lead to 14 million avoidable deaths over the next five years.
Cruel? You tell me.
Or we could talk about “pro-life” laws so hell-bent on protecting a fetus that they require a woman suffering a miscarriage to literally begin bleeding out before medical intervention is allowed. Or the ignorance that asserts that an ectopic pregnancy can result in a healthy baby if only the mother won’t be so quick to abort. Or statutes that require a nine-year-old raped by her brother or father or uncle or anyone else to carry her pregnancy to term.
Cruel? You tell me.
How about policies that allow blatant discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community? How about the proposed dismantling of NOAA, especially in light of last week’s tragic flood in Texas? How about the recently-passed federal budget that will strip health care and food assistance from millions of Americans?
Cruel? You tell me.
But back to Alligator Alcatraz. It’s located at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition airport, a facility imagined back in the 1960s as a groundbreaking transportation hub that would become the largest airport in the world. Thankfully, environmentalists concerned about the fragile ecosystem of the Everglades were able to quash that idea. Dade-Collier has only one runway and, until a few days ago, had been used only as a training facility for pilots.
Now it’s home to the largest ICE facility in the United States, much to the amusement and delight of the MAGA crowd, including President Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Built in just eight days on 39 square miles of swamp and surrounded by 28,000 feet of razor wire, the prison is comprised primarily of tents, bunk beds and chain-link cages. It will ultimately be large enough to house 5,000 people. Who are these people? The answer is unclear. “Questionable” immigrants arrested in Florida (and perhaps elsewhere) may be taken to the facility, interrogated and detained for potential deportation. Human rights groups are fighting this effort, citing inaccessibility and inhumane conditions—not just alligators but also heat, humidity, mosquitos and high risk of hurricanes–and calling the facility “theatricalization of cruelty.” Environmental advocates are protesting it, too, as are Native Americans who contend that the prison is built on sacred land.
In the meantime, Alligator Alcatraz merch is “selling like hotcakes,” according to one Florida news station. Thanks but no thanks. When cruelty is the point, I’ll pass on the t-shirt.
(July 12, 2025)