For all the chest-thumping braggadocio about Alligator Auschwitz—how their migrant-detention facility built on the Everglades was so “secure” and “unique”—turns out Trump and his associates are not very good at running it.
So claims a new report in Miami Herald, which states that a huge swath of men rounded up by Trump’s Gestapo have simply disappeared.
As of the end of August, the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during the month of July could not be determined by the Miami Herald. The Herald had obtained the names from two detainee rosters. Around 800 detainees showed no record on ICE’s online database. More than 450 listed no location and only instructed the user to ‘Call ICE for details’—a vague notation that attorneys said could mean that a detainee is still being processed, in the middle of a transfer between two sites or about to be deported.
Miami Herald‘s Ben Wieder and Shirsho Dasgupta offer up some possible explanations as to why migrants no longer appeared in the system, and essentially none of them are good.
Some Alligator Alcatraz detainees who couldn’t be located in the ICE database might have been deported—even though the internal data obtained by the Herald show the vast majority of detainees didn’t have final orders of removal from a judge before entering the facility. Some of those deportations occurred as a result of detainees deciding to abandon their ongoing immigration cases to put an end to their detention at the facility and its harsh conditions, which included being held in chain-link cages in tents with little protection from the elements. ‘It became a game of chicken to see who’s going to blink first,’ said Miami immigration attorney Alex Solomiany.
At a reported cost of nearly $500 million annually, Alligator Auschwitz opened only 8 days after it was announced—and experienced flooding and other problems almost immediately. A whistleblower came forward in August of this year, reporting inhumane treatment and abuse at the facility.
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
On some websites that sell wholesale products, you might remember seeing “please call for pricing” where cost is usually listed. That, in essence, is what Kristi Noem‘s ICE is doing with human beings.
My friend on Bluesky shared a thought about “Alcatraz vs. Auschwitz” semantics that I wanted to include in my Author Comment, because Trump’s entire charade during Regime 2 is all about ignoring due process, abuse, assaults and abductions. And since my personal-style guide is always framed around rhetorical accuracy, I called it “Alligator Auschwitz” throughout the story.
