The Rant Room
07/02/2025
About 50 miles west of Miami, in the gator-infested wetlands of Ochopee, Florida, sits one of the most infamous migrant detention centers in the country. They call it Alligator Alcatraz — and not in secret. Politicians reference it. Trump has bragged about it.
On July 1, 2025, Trump toured the site alongside Ron DeSantis and declared:
“It’s known as Alligator Alcatraz… that’s not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon … the only way out is deportation.”
He also joked that “you have a lot of cops in the form of alligators,” praised the rapid construction, and said the camp would be a model for national use
Built in eight days, it’s designed to hold up to 5,000 detainees, complete with barbed wire, cameras, and gator-filled swampland This is what American immigration policy looks like when it stops pretending.
It’s not “border enforcement.”
It’s a concentration camp.
Yes, Concentration Camps—Let’s Stop Playing Dumb
If you’re still clutching your pearls over the term, let’s break it down:
A concentration camp is any facility where people are confined—without trial or due process—based on their race, nationality, or political identity, often under inhumane conditions.
That’s what Alligator Alcatraz is.
That’s what all of ICE’s migrant “holding facilities” are.
And if you’re still clinging to legal euphemisms, you’re helping this system breathe.
Alligator Alcatraz is not an outlier. It’s a warning.
If you can build one in a swamp, you can build one anywhere. If you can lock up a child for seeking safety, you can justify anything. These places aren’t just monuments to cruelty—they are practice runs for authoritarianism.
And if we don’t name them for what they are—concentration camps—then we’re helping normalize it.
The Body Count Is Real
Since 2018, over 260 people have died in ICE custody, including children.
Those are just the ones documented.
That number doesn’t include:
People who died shortly after release with untreated infections, tumors, or wounds
Women who miscarried due to neglect
Children who now live with chronic respiratory problems from sleeping in mold-infested trailers
Some were refused insulin.
Some were denied surgeries.
Some were teens who died of the flu because ICE wouldn’t take them to a hospital.
Let’s stop pretending this is about border security.
If this were truly about “national security,” we’d focus on dismantling trafficking networks or funding immigration courts. But instead, we build camps in the middle of nowhere and hand billion-dollar contracts to private prison companies who benefit every time someone is locked up.
And let’s not forget who’s inside these camps:
Survivors of political violence
Indigenous people fleeing displacement
Women escaping sexual slavery
Kids whose parents were ripped from them in a church parking lot
These aren’t criminals. They’re casualties of U.S. foreign policy and global inequality.
These deaths don’t happen in a vacuum. They are the natural consequence of designing systems to break human beings.
SEACo: The Logistics of Dehumanization
Everyone’s heard of GEO Group and CoreCivic. But the puppet master most people miss is SEACo — Southwest Expressions and Corrections Company.
SEACo doesn’t run the cages — they fuel them.
They transport detainees like cattle across states.
They handle food supply (think moldy bread and expired milk).
They set up the surveillance. They hire private contractors who act more like mercenaries than guards.
Whistleblowers say SEACo has:
Covered up abuse
Tampering with food expiration labels
Bribing local sheriffs for favorable contracts
Using ex-military vehicles and contractors to move detainees like they’re cargo, not people
This is a company that has never been held accountable, because their job is to make torture run on time.
Now Trump Wants to Deport Citizens
And if you think this only affects migrants, think again.
In a June 2025 rally in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump openly said:
“Some of these people that pretend to be citizens—they’re not real Americans. If they support terror, if they support the invasion of our country, I don’t care what papers they have. They’re gone.”
He didn’t misspeak. He meant it.
He’s talking about deporting naturalized citizens.
He’s talking about stripping people’s citizenship based on their beliefs.
Sound familiar? That’s fascism .
And if we already have swampland cages ready to go — where do you think people like that end up?
Not undocumented immigrants. Not visa overstayers. Citizens.
People he labels “suspicious” or “un-American.”
It’s a test. He’s seeing what he can get away with. And if history has taught us anything, it’s this: authoritarianism doesn’t start with mass purges. It starts with language. With “invasions.” With rebranding neighbors as enemies.
And when the system already has hundreds of ICE camps and swamp prisons ready to go, it doesn’t take much for the scope to expand.
The Cruelty Is the Point
America isn’t just “detaining” immigrants. It’s building a system that runs on psychological warfare. And it’s preparing to turn that system inward.
Camps in the desert. Camps in swamps.
Camps in repurposed Walmarts and shuttered schools.
It’s not about national security. It’s about national obedience.
So call it what it is:
A concentration camp system
Fueled by corporate profit
Enabled by bipartisan cowardice
And now targeting more than just immigrants
Alligator Alcatraz is not the exception. It’s the blueprint.