'Alligator Alcatraz' merch pushed by GOP as Florida moves forward with detention facility
The items are available on the party's online store, which feature the "Alligator Alcatraz" moniker surrounded by claw marks. The t-shirts and beverage coolers also show a stylized mockup of the building, with a large alligator and snake in the foreground.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a Friday interview on Fox News that the new detention center will host its first detainees by July 1, roughly a week and a half after State Attorney General James Uthmeier posted the first video about the proposed facility and a week after construction began.
What is 'Alligator Alcatraz'? Migrant detention center approved in Florida.
"The perimeter's already set by mother nature," Uthmeier said about the site in an interview posted on X. "A lot of people thought maybe it was just a joke, but we're serious."
The Florida GOP's items echo similar political merchandise popularized by the Republican party in recent years, like the Trump campaign's embrace of t-shirts using his 2023 mug shot. More recently, Trump supporters seized on the moment NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said "daddy has to sometimes use strong language," with the release of a video of Trump set to "Hey Daddy (Daddy's Home)" by Usher and "daddy" t-shirts from The Trump War Room, run by Trump's campaign operation.
The federal government on June 23 approved a proposal to open a 5,000-bed detention facility on 39-square miles of land in the Everglades, according to Uthmeier, which includes converting existing structures from the Miami-Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport. The Florida facility, estimated to cost $450 million annually, could eventually house up to 5,000 people, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The facility, close to the Everglades National Park, has drawn backlash from locals and environmental groups. Two groups, Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, have filed a lawsuit against the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop what they said is the "unlawful construction of a prison in the heart of the Everglades."
Sierra Club Florida also is opposed to the development, which it said is "irresponsible."
"This 30 square-mile-area is completely surrounded by the Everglades," Uthmeier said in a video proposing the site. "It presents an efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don't need to invest that much in the perimeter. People get out, there's not much waiting for 'em other than alligators and pythons−nowhere to go, nowhere to hide."
Within days, trucks were seen bringing in materials, the Department of Homeland Security gave its approval and said FEMA money would be used to help fund it, and the governor's office announced the state would use emergency powers to take control of the land away from Miami-Dade County.
The governor told "Fox and Friends" co-host Steve Doocy is set to hold more than 3,000 undocumented immigrants. "We've got a massive runway right behind us where any of the federal assets, if they wanna fly these people back to their own country, they can do it one-stop-shop."
The move comes as both DeSantis and the Trump administration ramp up efforts to seize and deport undocumented immigrants in Florida and across the country, and several weeks after the president ordered federal agencies to reopen the original infamous Alcatraz, long a San Francisco tourist attraction, to "house America's most ruthless and violent offenders."
The "Alligator Alcatraz" facility is in Ochopee, Florida, just north of Everglades National Park and about 36 miles west of the Miami business district, CNN reported.
According to the Miami International Airport, the Dade-Collier Airport is used as a training facility for "commercial pilots, private training, and a small number of military touch-and-goes."
It's also around the ancestral homelands of the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribe of Florida. Tribal members have denounced the development of detainment camps on indigenous land.
The facility was constructed in 1968 and originally known as the Everglades Jetport, according to the National Park Service, before an environmental study and activist protests killed the plan.
In 1974, President Gerald Ford established Big Cypress National Preserve in the area, the nation's first national preserve. The Alligator Alcatraz site is about six miles from Big Cypress National Preserve.
Contributing: Melina Khan, USA TODAY, Antonio Fin, USA TODAY Network; Reuters.
Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Alligator Alcatraz' merch listed as Florida preps detention facility
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