On Tuesday, President Donald Trump paid a visit to Florida’s upcoming and controversial detention center, known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz‘. The Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport has been transformed into a vast prison in just eight days to house up to 5,000 illegal migrants.
The White House has shared pictures from Trump’s visit that give us an inside peek of the detention center which has been labelled ‘inhumane’ and ‘sadistic’ by critics and several social media users. Trump said, “Very soon, this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants—some of the most vicious people on the planet.”
📍ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ
“Very soon, this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants—some of the most vicious people on the planet.” – PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/sn5igFZGHU
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 1, 2025
The new detention center is named ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ because it’s surrounded by alligators and pythons. Anyone who tries to escape the walls of the prison will immediately face the deadly reptiles in the wetlands and chances of their survival would be slim. The fact that it’s nearly impossible to escape this new prison is why it’s being called ‘Alcatraz‘, the infamous federal prison on the West Coast of the United States which was closed in 1963.
The President joked about the reptiles guarding the prison as he further said, “we’re going to teach them[detainees] how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison.”
As the first pictures of the prison surfaced online, people compared it to the Auschwitz concentration camp operated by Nazis. Someone tweeted, “There’s a reason we call it #AlligatorAuschwitz”
There’s a reason we call it #AlligatorAuschwitz pic.twitter.com/9mWjVT3a7z
— 😼 (@dutchessprim) July 1, 2025
Another person tweeted, “History repeats. MAGA is the new Nazi.”
History repeats.
MAGA is the new Nazi. #AlligatorAuschwitz pic.twitter.com/rnBVCDx8jI— shelby (@thetrueshelby) July 1, 2025
Netizens believe that the harsh and isolated setting of Alligator Alcatraz resembles the sites like Auschwitz.
Trump’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is a center to temporarily detain illegal migrants till they are deported to their own countries. On the other hand, Auschwitz was a Nazi death camp where millions of Jews were systematically murdered. Some in favor of Trump argued that calling Florida’s detention center ‘Auschwitz’ is an insult to those who tragically died in Nazi camps.
This is a disgusting insult to those who were actually sent to Auschwitz.
— ur fren (@Ken01781644) July 1, 2025
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem accompanied President Trump to the infamous prison. She later took to X and wrote, “Alligator Alcatraz will be funded largely by FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, which the Biden administration used as a piggy bank to spend hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to house illegal aliens, including at the Roosevelt Hotel that served as a Tren de Aragua base of operations and was used to shelter Laken Riley’s killer.”
“Before this program was used to house criminal illegal aliens. Now, it is being used to detain criminal illegal aliens while they await deportation,” Noem further added.
Alligator Alcatraz will be funded largely by FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, which the Biden administration used as a piggy bank to spend hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to house illegal aliens, including at the Roosevelt Hotel that served as a Tren de… pic.twitter.com/axKEc8s3nj
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) July 2, 2025
The facility that will be operational soon includes heavy security features, such as barbed wire and extensive surveillance. People have raised concerns about the welfare of the detainees who’ll face extreme living conditions during Florida’s intense heat and hurricane in the season. However, this claim was debunked during Trump’s tour as it was revealed that the center is air conditioned.
Nevertheless, an X user wrote that Alligator Alcatraz is a “cruel, inhumane, and legally dubious scheme that weaponizes nature against vulnerable immigrants, reflecting a disturbing disregard for human rights and judicial oversight.”
Uthmeier’s “Alligator Alcatraz” proposal is a cruel, inhumane, and legally dubious scheme that weaponizes nature against vulnerable immigrants, reflecting a disturbing disregard for human rights and judicial oversight.
— Richard Angwin (@RichardAngwin) June 20, 2025
Environmental activists have also raised alarms about the potential risks to wildlife and natural resources in the area due to facility’s establishment. Everglades Jetport was initially visioned to be world’s largest airport. However, its construction came to an abrupt halt in the 1970s over environmental concerns.
Trump and his administration have turned a deaf ear towards all the concerns and remain focused on their mission to make the illegal immigrants suffer and remove from American soil.
