Eye of the Cormorant

another odd bird who chases fish.

Tag: protests

  • DeSantis Gulag: Protest #2 at Alligator Alcatraz

    Construction has begun on Alligator Alcatraz, the 1000 person immigration prison that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is building in the heart of a sensitive wetland. Once again, 400 concerned Floridians made the trek out to the center of the Big Cypress National Preserve to stand and protest for 4 hours under the midday sun.

    On the drive out to the second protest on Saturday morning we passed 8 concrete mixing trucks returning from the site and dozens of tractor-trailer rigs lined up to deliver construction materials.

    In winter, the center of Big Cypress National Preserve is a nature lover’s paradise, but in summer you reach a terminal sweat in the unrelenting heat and saturating humidity. Mosquitoes are big and fierce. The nearest small town is Everglades City, 40 miles away. This site has the makings of a Siberian style gulag, described by Alexandr Solzhenynitzyn in The Gulag Archipelago.

    Environmental activist Betty Osceola of the Miccosukee Tribe led the crowd of peaceful protesters.  We could hear the drum beats in the distance as the Miccosukees themselves protested to a higher authority.

    Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity have filed for an injunction pending the full environmental review required by federal law, and ignored by Gov. DeSantis.  DeSantis plows ahead, ignoring the law, his trademark modus operandi.

    DeSantis has seized the land under his 2023 emergency declaration, but the only emergencies we’re seeing here in South Florida are unnecessary ICE raids in our communities and unnecessary prison construction in a cherished and protected wetland.

  • “F*ck Alligator Alcatraz”

    So read one young woman’s sign this morning, 40 miles west of Miami on the Tamiami Trail, in the heart of the Big Cypress National Preserve.

    Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s latest brainstorm is to build an ICE prison in the middle of the Big Cypress National Preserve, a plan he dubs “Alligator Alcatraz”.

    James Uthmeier came to notoriety as the brains behind the diversion of $10 million in public Medicare funds into Gov. DeSantis’ dark money campaign against the Florida ballot initiative to legalize marijuana.

    This would be the same A.G. Uthmeier who is now held in civil contempt for advising Florida law enforcement agencies they should ignore a federal judge’s order limiting enforcement of a Florida statute creating a state immigration policy.

    Hundreds of people showed up this morning to protest Alligator Alcatraz. The line of parked cars was 1/4 mile long on one side of the road and I didn’t measure the line on the other side. Virtually all the cars driving through gave us positive toots on the horn and thumbs up. Zero disapproval.

    Click any photo to see it full size.

    Betty Osceola speaks. That’s Clyde Butcher on the left.

    Uthmeier is promoting this site for an immigration prison because, according to him, it wouldn’t need a perimeter fence since nobody can escape through the Everglades. What a moron. Does any intelligent person think that immigrants who escaped gangs by walking through the tropical forests of the Panama’s Darien Gap will be stopped by the inviting waters of a South Florida cypress swamp? My wife and I take children and geezers on swamp walks through the Big Cypress.

    If any immigrants did escape, Miccosukees and Seminoles living nearby would likely take them in. These First Nation folks have a long history of hiding fugitives from the U.S. Government in the swamps of South Florida. The proud Miccosukee Tribe never signed a treaty with the U.S. Government.

    No, the real reason for a 1000 bed ICE prison at Mile 48 on the Tamiami Trail is the Dade-Collier Transition Airport. So easy to lock people up out of sight then fly them out of the country in the middle of the night.

    This land is jointly owned by Miami-Dade and Collier Counties. Will our County Mayor and Commission fight to prevent the state from snatching it for an immigration prison?

    The young woman got it right: “Fuck Alligator Alcatraz”.
    Silence is complicity.

    © Philip Stoddard, 2025