Kristi Noem and NBC’s Kristen Welker didn’t exactly have a friendly Sunday chat. Instead, their exchange on Meet the Press got heated fast over Florida’s controversial new migrant detention center, grimly nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz.”
This sprawling facility in the Florida Everglades has space for nearly 4,000 people and is already holding about 900. It’s been under a harsh spotlight after Democratic lawmakers visited on Saturday. Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz didn’t mince words, calling it an “internment camp.” She and other Democrats claimed detainees were crammed “wall-to-wall” into cages, forced to drink water from sinks also used for the bathroom, and left sweltering in the brutal Florida heat.
When Welker pressed Noem on whether these conditions were “inhumane,” Noem was ready with her defense.
Q: What do you say to lawmakers who argue this is not humane treatment?
Noem: The standards are extremely high… I wouldn’t call them jail cells, I would call them facility where they are held to the highest levels.
She’s truly vile. pic.twitter.com/hONZPCCEpG
— Ron Smith (@Ronxyz00) July 13, 2025
“Our detention centers at the federal level are held to a higher standard than most local or state centers and even federal prisons. The standards are extremely high, now this is a state-run facility at Alligator Alcatraz —” she started before Welker jumped in.
“More than 30 people stuffed into a jail cell?” Welker shot back.
Noem didn’t miss a beat.
“I wish they would have said that back during the Biden administration and back when the Democrats were in the White House when they were piling people on top of each other on cement floors and they didn’t have two feet to move. They never did that, and that’s why this politics has to end,” she fired back.
Trying to clarify the setup, Noem added, “I wouldn’t call them jail cells, I would call them a facility where they are held and that are secure facilities, but are held to the highest levels of what the federal government requires for detention facilities –” before Welker cut in again.
“Democrats have called them cages,” Welker pressed.
Noem wasn’t backing down. She vowed to let cameras inside to document conditions firsthand, arguing it would show they’re better than facilities from Biden’s time. She even encouraged undocumented immigrants to avoid the centers altogether. Her advice? Self-deport, then come back legally.
Meanwhile, Trump administration Border Czar Tom Homan was on CNN’s State of the Union making his own digs at Democrats for suddenly caring about detention conditions now that Trump is back in charge.
“You didn’t see them complaining about, under Biden administration, people being held in a border patrol parking lot surrounded by a fence and sweltering heat, they ignored four years of open borders, historic migrant deaths, historic Americans dying from fentanyl, historic numbers of women and children being sex trafficked,” Homan said.
Secretary Kristi Noem shares chilling details about ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ sounds like the last place you’d want to end up! 🐊 pic.twitter.com/op6JJVlx3s
— 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐇𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 (@DKH013) July 13, 2025
All of this comes as Trump’s administration keeps doubling down on aggressive deportation policies, trying to lock down the southern border, and triggering fresh legal challenges in the process.
Because apparently in American politics, even the debate over cages comes with its own round of finger-pointing, whataboutism, and promises to invite in the cameras, just in case anyone wants to watch the argument unfold in 4K.
