Local opponents of Alligator Alcatraz protest in Hernando
DeSoto County opponents of Trump Administration policies regarding illegal immigration Saturday turned their attention to the Florida detention center built to house migrants named “Alligator Alcatraz.” The center in the Florida Everglades is to be used to detain captured illegal immigrants before their return to their home country.
Twenty members of the protest group Indivisible DeSoto MS were on the DeSoto County Courthouse lawn in Hernando Saturday afternoon between 3-4 p.m. They said their protest against Alligator Alcatraz was the first of its type in Mississippi.
Indivisible DeSoto MS calls “Alligator Alcatraz” a No Due Process Concentration Camp, and said they deplore the conditions there, which include alligator and python-infested waters surrounding the center. Inmates first entered the facility at the beginning of July. It’s location and makeup are what caused the name, reflecting of alligators surrounding it and the expectation the gators and snakes in the Everglades will keep inmates from trying to escape.
Originally known as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, Alligator Alcatraz was built in just eight days under Florida emergency powers. President Trump toured and praised the center before it opened and federal lawmakers have also toured the facility, built to house 3,000 inmates and be expandable to 5,000.
During Saturday’s protest, signs declaring, “No Concentration Camps in USA!”, “Abolish ICE,” “No Alligator Alcatraz,” and others were waved in front of the courthouse. A pair of inflatable alligators with ICE hats were brought out, and protestors also waved an upside down American flag as a form of expressing distress.
The issue of the detention center has apparently split Americans, as shown by a YouGOV poll indicating 48 percent of Americans oppose the center, 33 percent in favor of it, and 18 percent not sure. More than half of declared independents polled are opposed to the center.
Republican lawmakers who have visited Alligator Alcatraz reportedly were pleased by the conditions, while Democrats have condemned the center, its conditions, and the speed used with state emergency powers to construct it.
“While Texas is suffering from devastating floods, the president is in Florida bragging about a concentration camp,” said Indivisible DeSoto MS Visibility Chair Erin McElyea. “ The news coming out this week about the deplorable conditions in ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ have left me absolutely stunned that the sitting president of the United States is on TV joking about immigrants being eaten by alligators. I just don’t understand how we got to this point in our country.”
“We are outraged by what this administration is doing,” added Keith Rubrun. “They are separating families again and moving them to various facilities without Due Process of the Law.”
Protesters said they will continue their weekly hour-long appearances on the Courthouse lawn each Saturday at 3 p.m.
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