The Democrat’s criticism of detention facility is no surprise

July 22, 2025

The Trump administration and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have opened a facility in Florida to hold illegal aliens, most of whom are convicted of, or charged with, crimes, until they are deported from the United States. Democrat critics, as usual, make charges that are exaggerated, not true, or inciteful.

Florida Democrat Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz described the facility as an "internment camp," with detainees housed in "cages,” using combined toilet-sink units for drinking water and brushing their teeth, a shower facility lacking privacy, an internal temperature of 83 degrees, and having to eat a meager lunch of a small turkey and cheese sandwich, an apple, and chips. 

Alligator Alcatraz is a prison, a detention facility, not a 5-star hotel. While these law breakers will not have gourmet food and lush accommodations, they will have an air-conditioned place to sleep, meals and bathroom facilities, until their deportation.

Further, Alligator Alcatraz is actually not a facility in which inmates sleep with and try to avoid alligators, as the leftist critics would have you believe. It is a place where inmates will be protected from and not be threatened by alligators, so long as they do not try and succeed in escaping the facility and then having to cross the Everglades swamplands on foot.

The game plan of Democrats and other critics of the Trump administration’s efforts to restore order and legal behavior to immigration is to exaggerate the situation, and even to outright lie to make the situation for the illegal aliens look far worse that it is.

The detention center got its name due to being in the heart of the Everglades, in which reptiles such as alligators and pythons reside. Gov. DeSantis authorized the construction of the center on a 30-square-mile property in Miami–Dade County under an emergency order in June. 

Another critic of the detention center is Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried. In a news release last month, she commented, "This proposed detention center isn’t just cruel, it’s environmentally catastrophic. This facility would desecrate ecologically critical wetlands, trample on Tribal sovereignty, and transform one of the world’s most cherished ecosystems into a prison camp for political gain."

However, the center is not located on a large expanse of nature. It is located on a recently available part of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport that has been transformed to house 5,000 illegal immigrants in sturdy tent structures. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem remarked that the facility's remote location adds an extra layer of security protection, while noting that the detention center is air-conditioned. 

Providing information on exactly who the inmates of the facility are, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, commented that "This group of murderers, rapists, and gang members are just a small sample of the deranged psychopaths that Florida is helping President Trump and his administration remove from our country."

Some of those facing deportation are:

* Lazaro Rodriguez Santana, a Cuban national, was convicted in Texas of sexual assault and failure to register as a sex offender. 
* Honduran national Jose Fortin, convicted of second-degree murder in Miami-Dade County, Florida. 
* Oscar "Satan" Sanchez of Honduras, an alleged MS-13 gang member charged with resisting arrest, conspiracy to commit murder and assault in New York, as well as RICO offenses.
* Venezuelan national Wilfredo Alberto Lazama-Garcia, wanted for murder and aggravated robbery in the South American country. In the United States, he was convicted of conspiracy "to defraud the U.S. government in Oklahoma." 
* Eddy Lopez Jemot of Cuba, convicted of murder, arson, and assault. He was arrested for "cutting the throat of an elderly woman" in Key Largo, Florida, and then lit her residence on fire with hopes of hiding the evidence. Later that night, he allegedly "threatened to kill" another woman via beheading.

Many people wonder why the left works so hard to defend those who entered their country illegally, and many of whom commit vicious crimes.

Author and radio host Jason Rantz offers this explanation: “Somehow, in the warped world of progressive politics, removing predators from our communities is deemed ‘controversial.’ Arresting child rapists, gang members, and drug traffickers has become a rallying cry for Democrats who insist these deportations violate ‘human rights.’ You’d think protecting law-abiding families — immigrants and citizens alike — would be common sense. But not when the Democrats get involved.”

The ridiculous and dangerous practice of the Biden administration to essentially have opened the border to all, regardless of who they were and why they wanted in, is what got us to this place. No sensible person serving as President of the United States would merely shrug their shoulders and allow the 20 million illegals that are still here to roam the country and do as they please. 

Despite all of the good reasons for ICE and CBP to find and deport these people, hundreds or thousands — some politically motivated, others who have fallen victim to the hyperbolic rhetoric — protest against these actions, go so far off course as to interfere with law enforcement, and even stoop to physically attack them.

While America defends the right to hold any idea, these ideas and actions are un-American, and some are criminal.