The news lately has been so wonderful—Iran gelded, peace deals breaking out all over, the Supreme Court issuing excellent rulings, etc.—that it’s hard to say that this or that story is my favorite. But today, my favorite is absolutely the fact that an illegal alien detention center, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” is opening in Florida. The new center can hold as many as 5,000 people, but the best part is the location: It’s in the middle of the Everglades, where Florida’s wildlife will provide the bulk of the security. The story works at so many levels, it’s almost hard to grasp it all.
You can get a sense of how wonderful the detention center will be by reading the New York Times’s coverage:
Florida is building a detention facility for migrants nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” turning an airfield in the Everglades into the newest — and scariest-sounding — holding center designed to help the Trump administration carry out its immigration crackdown.
The remote facility, composed of large tents, and other planned facilities will cost the state around $450 million a year to run, but Florida can request some reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security.
Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, a Trump ally who has pushed to build the detention center in the Everglades, has said the state will not need to invest much in security because the area is surrounded by dangerous wildlife, including alligators and pythons. A spokesperson for the attorney general said work on the new facility started on June 23.
This tour shows how remarkable the facility is:
What’s even better is the funding, which comes from the same account Biden used to house illegal aliens in luxury hotels in New York!I don’t think anyone realizes how impressive Alligator Alcatraz is. The State of Florida built this 3,000 bed federal prison in eight days. The director tells me it could have been done in 72 hours were it not for some regulatory hold-ups. Now all the state needs is DOJ approval… pic.twitter.com/gOFuQkyn2Z
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 1, 2025
Trump will be in Florida for the grand opening, and he has thoughts:???? JUST IN: Alligator Alcatraz will be funded with the money Biden set aside to put illegals in five star hotels, per @TriciaOhio
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 27, 2025
Illegals are going from the lush Roosevelt Hotel in New York City to a detention center surrounded by gators ????
THAT'S what we voted for ???? pic.twitter.com/M2UgDCcz5M
???? LMAO! On his way to Alligator Alcatraz, President Trump says he’s going to teach illegals how to run away from alligators
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 1, 2025
“Don't run in a straight line... and you know what? Your chances go up by about one percent. Not a good thing!” ???????? pic.twitter.com/iicNZ63Qqb
TRUMP: “Biden wanted me in here ... Didn't work out that way. He wanted me here that son of a bitch.” ????
— ALX ???????? (@alx) July 1, 2025
pic.twitter.com/tTUVclAa3f
For those of us who remember Trump’s joke about having alligators guard America’s southern border, having that powerful visual come to actual fruition is a dream come true.
I know a little bit about both Alcatraz and alligators. I know about Alcatraz because I lived most of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area. You really have to be on the Bay itself or, even better, on the island on which the prison was built, to understand how completely nature functioned as a barrier to escape. The Bay is bitterly cold, the island is far from land, and there are sharks...
I also know about alligators because we have a lot of them in my neighborhood. Indeed, every day, we take the dog and head out to the pond around the corner from my house to feed the turtles. And while I enjoy feeding the turtles (the clunking of shells and flapping of flippers as they fight over tidbits makes me feel like I’m watching a weird, bloodless gladiatorial combat), the real goal is to see if any alligators show up.
Ours is a small pond, so the largest alligator it ever hosts is about 5 feet long. Most are smaller than that. But even these small alligators are scary. I enjoy them with awe, and slightly trembling fascination.
Alligators have existed in their present form for around 37 million years. They haven’t needed to evolve since then because they are perfect killing machines. They lurk invisibly under water and along the banks, they move in the water with sinuous grace and speed, their jaws clamp shut with one of the most powerful bites in the animal kingdom, and they can have jaguar-like bursts of speed on land.
Just a few days ago, a horrible story emerged out of Florida. A man and his wife from Michigan were canoeing in two feet of water when they unwittingly struck an 11-foot alligator, which thrashed about. The powerful motion caused the couple to fall out of the canoe, at which point the alligator grabbed 61-year-old Cynthia Diekema in a powerful bite and subjected her to a death roll.
Perhaps because I was raised in the shadow of the Holocaust (I knew many who had experienced it or escaped it), I’ve always had a painfully good imagination about horrible ways to die. Being chomped and rolled by an alligator is high on that list. The thought of a nice lady from Michigan meeting her maker that way is stomach-churning—and that’s how anyone who has heard the story reacts to it.
Viscerally, we humans don’t want to get eaten by alligators or squished and swallowed, possibly while we’re still alive, by pythons. For the new residents at Florida’s new Alligator Alcatraz, even if the actual likelihood of an alligator or python capturing an escapee is small, the imagined horror of that death is so nightmarish that it will be a serious disincentive to anyone thinking of making a break for it.
And of course, the left is hysterical, calling the new detention facility “Alligator Auschwitz.” They can maintain this revisionist and truly evil fiction by pretending that there is no difference between slaughtering people because of their ethnic makeup, as the Nazis did, and detaining and returning to their home countries people who have illegally entered America.
Also, the memes are fantastic:
Coming soon! pic.twitter.com/v3DCJsrDwV
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) June 28, 2025
I feel like it's Christmas morning!
— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) July 1, 2025
What time is Alligator Alcatraz opening today? ???? pic.twitter.com/xyQbVkzKTh
Floridians patrolling Alligator Alcatraz.. ???????? pic.twitter.com/bLDgpNeQ7m
— American AF ???????? (@iAnonPatriot) June 30, 2025
Shown is the line of gators waiting to fill out job applications at Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades. pic.twitter.com/etje36cNmW
— DK???????????????????? (@1Nicdar) June 29, 2025
Alligator Alcatraz????
— Popmemes by Jon ???? (@JonCovering) June 29, 2025
See You Later, Alligator pic.twitter.com/Pbw6WBloZA
Alligator Alcatraz opens tomorrow and I never thought I’d be so happy to see actual gators ???? ???????? pic.twitter.com/MsAP9aKzJg
— Monica Crowley (@MonicaCrowley) June 30, 2025
Shawn Farash went above and beyond his usual comedic brilliance to produce this gem:ICE, ICE, BABY ????????
— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) June 29, 2025
Alligator Alcatraz is LIT ???? pic.twitter.com/PEz7Z2AWOF
TRUMP ANNOUNCES THE OPENING OF "ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ!" pic.twitter.com/T7qmu5Djth
— Shawn Farash (@Shawn_Farash) July 1, 2025
As I said at the start of this essay, there is nothing about Alligator Alcatraz that doesn’t gladden the heart of those who are happy to see the Trump administration restore law and order to America—especially the laws against illegal immigration, a scourge that has driven up crime, made housing for the poor unaffordable, burdened public services meant for Americans, driven down wages and, through dishonest census counts, given Democrat states a heft in the House and in federal entitlements that’s far in excess of what they rightfully deserve under an honest reading of the Constitution.