House Democrats are calling for the closure of Florida's new migrant detention facility on a remote site nestled in the Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz," citing it as an example of what they argue is the Trump administration's "shameful, dehumanizing approach to immigration."
Democratic Reps. Janelle Bynum (Ore.) and Maxwell Frost (Fla.) led a group of 24 Democrats in sending a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Todd Lyons on Wednesday.
The letter includes signatures from Reps. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Eric Swalwell (Calif.), among others.
The Democratic lawmakers panned the facility as a "cruel and inhumane stunt." The administration used money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program to build the facility, which is projected to cost about $450 million a year.
“This kind of cruel rhetoric and deliberate endangerment further exemplifies the administration’s shameful, dehumanizing approach to immigration – an approach rooted in anti-immigrant hostility that is morally indefensible and in clear violation of fundamental human rights,” the members wrote in the letter.
They said migrants detained there while awaiting deportation will be kept in tents "with inadequate sanitation facilities" facing conditions including "exposure to deadly pathogens, constant threats from unpredictable flooding and extreme weather events, and daily temperatures averaging 90 degrees, with a heat index often over 100 degrees Fahrenheit."
"Erecting tents in the blazing Everglades sun, during hurricane season no less, and call it immigration enforcement is nothing short of disgusting and cruel. Donald Trump and his Administration don’t care if migrant men, women, and children live or die – they only care about cruelty and spectacle,” Frost said in a statement.
The group is demanding clarity on the funding and conditions at the facility and "a commitment to humane treatment for all detainees at all detention facilities."
Trump toured the site Tuesday to mark its opening, touting the facility alongside Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
The facility was built through a partnership with state and federal resources to bolster Trump's immigration crackdown and features soft-sided units outfitted with chain-link cells that have been built to house hundreds of detainees.
“It’s known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ which is very appropriate, because I looked outside and it’s not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon,” Trump said while at the facility. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland and the only way out is, really, deportation.”
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