Alligator Alcatraz is open, but last week it was not to a few Florida lawmakers.
Florida lawmakers were denied entry to Alligator Alcatraz on July 3rd shortly after Donald Trump’s visit. The new federal site was erected to help fulfill Trump’s desire to move the largest number of immigrants (read: anyone who is Black or Brown) out of the country. The quick “construction” of the detention center, that many are likening to a concentration camp, in the middle of the Everglades doesn’t scream “safe” or “humane.”
State Representatives Angie Nixon, Anna V. Eskamani and Michele Rayner along with Senators Carlos Guillermo Smith and Shervin Jones approached Alligator Alcatraz as per their statutory right, and were denied entry due to “safety concerns.” One Senator asked if the facility was “unsafe when [they] let the President of the United States in here just hours ago?”
The question remained unanswered.
All parties involved took to social media to discuss the implications of being unable to access Alligator Alcatraz. In an Instagram post Sen. Jones said that the group didn’t show up “for politics” rather they “showed up for people.” Most importantly, he said he and his fellow elected officals “were denied entry into a facility” they “have every legal right to inspect. When compassion is treated like a threat, you have to ask yourself: what are they so afraid we’ll see?”
On Wednesday, July 9th, the group filed a suit and later that day, formal invitations were sent to lawmakers to tour the facility this weekend. A spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Stephanie Hartman, told the Miami Herald “the reporting on the conditions in the facility is completely false,” and that “the facility meets all required standards and is in good working order.”
Without open access to the facility, questions remain about transparency and oversight. Lawmakers argue that public officials must be allowed to see the conditions firsthand in order to ensure accountability. “It’s so essential, when you have hundreds of millions of public dollars being spent on a political stunt, that we have the ability to see with our own eyes what is happening,” said Rep. Anna Eskamani.
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