"This facility will soon house some of the most frightening, most vicious people on the planet," former US President Donald Trump said on 1/7 while touring the facility in Florida. "Surrounding this area are kilometers of dangerous swamps, and the only way for those detained to escape is to be deported."
The $450 million immigrant detention center is built at an abandoned airport in the Everglades, Florida, where the surrounding swamps are home to alligators and venomous snakes. The facility has been nicknamed "alligator Alcatraz" after the former prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, which Trump expressed interest in reopening.
 |
Former President Donald Trump and US officials at the "alligator Alcatraz" immigrant detention center in Florida on 1/7. Photo: AP |
Former President Donald Trump and US officials at the "alligator Alcatraz" immigrant detention center in Florida on 1/7. Photo: AP
"There are a lot of alligators here acting as police and guards, and we don't have to pay them much," Trump said. "The Everglades swamp will force detainees to remain in this detention center."
Making a zigzag motion with his hand, Trump joked that "we'll teach immigrants how to escape from an alligator". "If they escape, teach them how to run. Don't run in a straight line, move like this. Their chances will increase by about 1%," the former president said.
He then stated his desire to begin deporting naturalized US citizens who have committed crimes, despite the controversy surrounding the issue. Trump described the waves of undocumented immigrants entering the US during former President Joe Biden's administration as "disgusting" and called them "violent criminal gangs".
"Alligator Alcatraz" is the latest measure in the Trump administration's immigration policy. Some undocumented immigrants have been sent by US authorities to prisons in El Salvador, as well as the detention camp at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
 |
Former President Donald Trump and US officials at the immigrant detention center nicknamed "alligator Alcatraz" in Florida on 1/7. Photo: AP |
Former President Donald Trump and US officials at the immigrant detention center nicknamed "alligator Alcatraz" in Florida on 1/7. Photo: AP
Environmentalists have criticized the establishment of the immigrant detention center in the Everglades preserve. An estimated 200,000 alligators live in the Everglades, and they can grow to over 4.5 m in length.
Alligator bites are relatively rare in Florida. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, there were 453 unprovoked alligator bites between 1948 and 2022, 26 of which were fatal.
Nguyen Tien (According to AFP, AP)
