Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-FL (I can’t help but remember how Rush Limbaugh used to call her “Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz”), has been railing about the “inhumane” conditions at “Alligator Alcatraz”: e.g., the detainees have to use jailhouse toilets which combine sink and toilet in one stainless steel unit, and there are “insects everywhere.”
In an e-mailed statement to Newsweek, she declared,
This inhumane camp mirrors the despicable imprisonment that Japanese Americans endured in internment camps without due process in World War II. Like then, Trump and DeSantis ethnically target individuals without formal trials or charges, and detain them in makeshift barracks, or in this case, cages. And just like that ugly chapter in America’s past, these Everglades detainees lack any privacy or humane treatment, and face inadequate food, sanitation, medical and living conditions. The immoral treatment of human beings on this Florida site unmistakably echoes a similarly shameful American chapter.
Schultz was particularly outraged that while those manning (Oops! Can we still say “manning,” or must we say “personing”?) the facility were fed “large pieces of roast chicken and large sausages,” the detainees had to make do with “small, gray turkey and cheese sandwiches and apple and chips, and that’s it.”
“We’re talking about fully grown men being fed very small portions,” the Florida Congresswoman kvetched.
Golly, they get apples? Isn’t that fresh fruit? I remember the time or two that I was in jail. We got three meals a day, and every one was the same: a slice of bologna between two slices of dry white bread, and black coffee. And I was, and am, an American citizen, not an illegal alien.
Maybe Schultz could take these poor, oppressed individuals into her own home, where she could give them the kind of food, lodging, privacy, and care that she thinks they deserve. Heck, she could even cook for them and bring them their meals and fresh towels like room service!
I can’t help but be reminded of reading, when I was a kid, some of my dad’s old copies of Yank, The Army Weekly from World War II. One memorable item was supposed to be a letter to a soldier from the folks “back home,” telling how everyone, even on the homefront, was forced to make sacrifices. Those sacrifices included having steak only twice a week, and “no more cherries in our cherry Cokes.”
Florida Democrat Maxwell Frost (no, not the same as “Max Frost and the Troopers”!) was upset that Alligator Alcatraz was a place “where people are forced to eat, sleep, shower, and defecate all in the same room.”
Please! You’re breakin’ my heart! It’s a jail, a detention facility! Where did you get the notion that being in jail was supposed to be comfortable? The conditions in such a facility are supposed to be part of the deterrent to doing stuff that will land you up in such a facility; where did you get the notion that it was supposed to be a country club, a spa, or even a summer camp?
“There are insects everywhere!” Well, Duh! It’s in the Everglades! Is it any worse than what U.S. Marine Corps recruits go through at Parris Island? They get eaten alive by sand fleas, and they’re not even supposed to swat ‘em! Are the detainees at Alligator Alcatraz forbidden to swat the insects that plague them? Has any detainee ever been singled out for swatting an insect and then been forced to dig a grave and bury the insect, the way more than one Marine recruit has been forced to do?
And, by the way, I’m not a Marine. But I’ve heard enough stories of Boot Camp at Parris Island to believe them. I’ve even had Marines tell me that they reached a point where they were so exhausted and sleep-deprived and hot and sweaty and sore and eaten alive by sand fleas that they questioned what they had gotten themselves into, and seriously considered quitting, at which point the Drill Instructor would remind them of what the letters “USMC” actually stood for: ‘U’ Signed the Motherf***ing Contract!
Such are the conditions endured by those American citizens who have volunteered to be among “the few and the proud.”
The detainees at Alligator Alcatraz didn’t sign a contract. But they did enter the USA illegally. And that is reason enough for their detention, let alone whatever other crimes they may have committed (and, apparently, many of those detained have committed other crimes, including theft, murder, rape, child-molestation and drug- and gang-related crimes; the facility was built in order “to safely detain the worst of the worst”). If they didn’t want to be forced to live in such inhumane conditions, they shouldn’t have sneaked across the border (even if former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other Biden Administration officials were—figuratively—encouraging them with open arms, big smiles and banners declaring ¡Bienvenidos!).
But wait, there’s more! The recently-appointed executive director of the ACLU of Florida and a former officer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, one Bacardi Jackson (did her parents name her after a popular brand of rum?), brought up a whole ‘nother reason to be outraged about Alligator Alcatraz: It’s built, you see, on “sacred, indigenous land,” and is, therefore, “a direct assault on humanity, dignity, indigenous sovereignty, and the constitutional protections we all share.”
Somehow, when I hear the words “direct assault,” I’m reminded less of “indigenous sovereignty” and more of the kind of direct assault suffered by Laken Riley or any of the countless other victims of violent illegal immigrants. Detention and deportation seem far more “humane” than what many of these criminals actually deserve.
Stu Tarlowe has been contributing to American Thinker since 2010; most of his work for AT can be accessed here. He also posts irregularly on Stu’s Stack o’ Stuff, where the content is not exclusively political but includes memoirs, observations and even jokes (and where subscriptions are currently free). For more than a decade, Stu was the personal editor for Conservative talk radio icon and author Barry Farber. Stu will entertain offers of employment as a columnist, editor, proofreader, re-write specialist and tutor.