(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Alligator Alcatraz, a Deportation Tent City in the Florida Everglades -what could possibly go wrong? [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-06-29

Governor DeSantis “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention/deportation center in south Florida has been constructed at a furious pace over the last week and is set to open in a few days. Huge tents, (repurposed from Covid-19 drive through testing), have been erected to house detainees. Trailers have been hauled in for sanitation. Food and water will be trucked in and wastewater/sewage (laundry?) trucked out — at who knows what cost — all this to be paid for from already scarce FEMA funds! This, while actual disasters across the county, including those affecting Trump voters in ‘red states’ or like Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa and Mississippi, have been denied funding oklahomawatch.org/... .

What could possibly go wrong? Well, its hurricane season for one. What is Mr. DeSantis going to do with thousands of detainees at Alligator Alcatraz when a Hurricane is headed there?

Then, there are the public health risks of crowding people into un-airconditioned tents in sub-tropical south Florida with limited sanitation during the heat of Summer. The potential for an epidemic and/or an explosion of mosquito borne diseases seems alarmingly high.

The handy part of this location is its oppressive setting, at an airfield in a vast sub-tropical swamp where detainees can be flown in and flown out without due process and outside of public view. This location is particularly well suited to the deportation of 500K Haitians who lost their temporary protected status on Friday. It remains unclear whether immigration court facilities and humane health care for detainees will be part of this facility.

The health care aspect seems particularly problematic, given the potential for this environment, where thousands of detainees will crowded into tents, to become a vector for a wide range of diseases from Covid-19 and Avian Flu to mumps, measles, tuberculosis, hepatitis, and HIV along with an alarming number of mosquito borne illnesses, like Everglades Encephalitis.

The Everglades are home to more than 30 species of mosquitos with a population estimated to be in excess of 7 billion. There are more than 500 known mosquito-borne viruses and at least 100 can cause disease in humans. Most originate from wildlife that infect mosquitoes which then transmit the virus to humans through their bites. Peak mosquito season is during the warm wet summer months, coinciding with the time when Alligator Alcatraz is set to open. It is unclear how of if mosquitos at Alligator Alcatraz can or will be controlled.

Here are some of the risks.

Mosquito-Borne Diseases in the Everglades:

Tent housing at Alligator Alcatraz nearing completion

A few months ago Trump planned to send tens of thousands of immigrant detainees to Guantánamo Bay. That idea turned out to be ridiculously expensive, wildly impractical and logistically nonsensical. So far, only about 500 detainees have been sent to Guantánamo and at any one time less than 100 have been housed there, at an expense of $100,00/person/day!!! (www.opb.org/...)

For comparison, it costs about $165 a day to keep a migrant in ICE detention in the U.S.

The U.S. military erected several hundred tents to house migrants at Guantánamo, but has used none of them.

The facility at Alligator Alcatraz may have better logistics and potentially lower operational costs, but it seems equally problematic from a health standpoint. Then there is the risk of Hurricanes.

Florida Hurricanes

Hurricane season is upon us and south Florida is at risk climatecenter.fsu.edu/.... In recent years we’ve witness rapid hurricane intensification. Given cutbacks at NOAA, the ability to predict landfall paths and intensification will be compromised. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted a more-active-than-normal 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

God help detainees at Alligator Alcatraz if a major hurricane comes to south Florida this summer. Tents and trailers are hopelessly inadequate shelters during a hurricane, evacuation would be impractical, and excess rainfall in a land of slow drainage means flooding will breed even more mosquitos and more opportunity for the spread of mosquito borne illness. This is a disaster in the making.

Historic hurricane tracks across south Florida, in and near Alligator Alcatraz

Alligator Alcatraz is clearly intended to be cruel and unusual punishment, Sending detained immigrants to an environmentally unsafe, unhealthy facility so that they can be rapidly deported to foreign countries, is a clear violation of the 8th Amendment www.cvt.org/.... Given recent court action and inaction in response to Trump’s unconstitutional policies, I have little hope for a rapid and constitutionally correct end to this atrocity, but it must be challenged in court and in the court of public opinion — starting here.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/29/2330530/-Alligator-Alcatraz-a-Deportation-Tent-City-in-the-Florida-Everglades-what-could-possibly-go-wrong?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/