Lawmakers Visit 'Alligator Alcatraz' After Being Blocked
Source: Huff Post/AP
Jul 12, 2025, 05:40 PM EDT
OCHOPEE, Fla. (AP) Democratic lawmakers condemned Floridas new Everglades immigration detention center after a state-arranged visit Saturday, describing a crowded, unsanitary and bug-infested facility that officials have dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. A Republican on the same tour said he saw nothing of the sort.
The tour came after some Democrats were blocked earlier from viewing the 3,000-bed detention center that the state rapidly built on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland. So many state legislators and members of Congress turned up Saturday that they were split into multiple groups to view the facility.
There are really disturbing, vile conditions and this place needs to be shut the hell down, Rep. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, told reporters after visiting. This place is a stunt, and theyre abusing human beings here.
Cage-style units of 32 men share three combination toilet-sink devices, the visitors measured the temperature at 83 degrees (28 degrees Celsius) in one area that was billed as air-conditioned and grasshoppers and other insects abound, she and other Democrats said. Although the visitors said they werent able to speak with the detainees, Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Democrat from Florida, said one called out Im an American! and others chanting, Libertad!, a Spanish word for freedom.
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/immigration-florida-detention-center-lawmaker-visit_n_6872d58ce4b07a168b47c6eb

BaronChocula
(2,964 posts)It's a trump concentration camp for poor people who may have committed a civil offense.
Magoo48
(6,517 posts)truthisfreedom
(23,428 posts)Bayard
(25,951 posts)He thinks this is how immigrants should be treated.