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NBC News: Debate over ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention center a personal one for members of Miccosukee and Seminole tribes

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The homes of Miccosukee and Seminole people, as well as their ceremonial sites, surround the detention center on three sides.

The constant rumbling of passing dump trucks drowns out the once familiar chirping of birds at the family home of Mae’anna Osceola-Hart in Everglades National Park.

“It’s all-day, all-night truck noise,” says the 21-year-old photographer who describes herself as part Miccosukee and part Seminole, two Florida tribes at the heart of the debate over the detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

The homes of Miccosukee and Seminole people, as well as their ceremonial sites, surround the detention center on three sides.

Osceola-Hart’s great-grandfather Wild Bill Osceola fought against the development of an airport at the same site where the ICE facility’s construction is now underway.

In 1968, authorities in Dade County, now known as Miami-Dade County, began building the Big Cypress Jetport on land the Miccosukees used for ceremonial practices. The Dade County Port Authority referred to the project as the “world’s largest airport,” with six runways designed to handle large jets, and officials were quoted as calling the environmental and tribal leaders who opposed it “butterfly chasers.”

The airport became a flashpoint for resistance, but in 1969, a coalition including Osceola-Hart’s great-grandfather, fellow tribesmen and conservationists persuaded Florida Gov. Claude R. Kirk Jr. that the airport would damage the Everglades. He ordered construction be stopped. One runway, approximately 10,000 feet in length, was left behind as a training ground for pilots.

Osceola-Hart is proud of her great-grandfather’s efforts to stop the 1960s development, but she is disappointed the Miccosukees lost land they considered sacred. “We got kicked out of ceremonial grounds,” she says.

Finding a safe place to live has been an ongoing battle for the tribes in Florida. Seminoles retreated into the Everglades after the Seminole wars ended in 1858.

…

Leaders of both tribes are constantly advocating for the preservation of the national park’s wildlife and vegetation, but they don’t have authority over how the land is used.

“It’s a long, fraught battle,” says William “Popeye” Osceola, secretary of the Miccosukee Tribe, describing how tribes are constantly fighting for rights over the land they have lived on for more than a century.

…

William Osceola tells young members of his tribe to stay engaged to protect their rights. “Some of these fights, they come in different forms, but it’s still the same fight.” he said.

Osceola-Hart agrees. “This is history repeating itself,” she says.

Debate over ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention center a personal one for members of Miccosukee and Seminole tribes
The homes of Miccosukee and Seminole people, as well as their ceremonial sites, surround the detention center on three sides.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alligator-alcatraz-detention-center-personal-rcna215824

Closer to the Edge: Alligator Auschwitz

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Trump built a concentration camp in the Everglades, filled it with tents, barbed wire, and migrants — then laughed about the alligators guarding it.

Donald Trump stood in the middle of a swamp and laughed about who might die there. He didn’t whisper. He didn’t slip up. He smiled for the cameras, gestured like a stand-up comic, and offered survival tips to migrants facing heatstroke and armed guards: “Don’t run in a straight line. Run like this. Your chances go up about one percent.” That’s the punchline. That’s the policy. That’s the sound of a dictator test-marketing genocide as a joke, to see if the country still flinches. And the crowd? They laughed. They always laugh.

Alligator Auschwitz isn’t hyperbole. It’s location-specific horror. It’s a mass detention facility in the Everglades, surrounded by barbed wire and alligators, built in eight days with no due process, no air-conditioning, no press access, and no shame. The people inside are dehydrated, afraid, and invisible. The man who built it treats it like a tourist attraction. He called it “professional.” He called it “beautiful.” He called the alligators “officers” who don’t need to be paid. This is not immigration enforcement. This is fascism with a swamp aesthetic — cruelty as spectacle, stripped of pretense, staged for applause.

There are no live feeds. No outside monitors. No civilian oversight. There is heat. There are guards with AR-15s. There are 5,000 beds and not a single guarantee of due process. Detainees are locked inside tents where the temperature regularly tops 100°F. If they’re sick, they wait. If they’re injured, they pray. If they try to escape, they run through terrain where the president of the United States fantasizes about gators doing the job of bullets. And we’re supposed to treat this as politics. As news. As just another item in the news cycle. But this isn’t a policy dispute. It’s a moral collapse.

Trump knows exactly what he’s doing. He built a concentration camp with branding. He took the iconography of American wilderness — swamps, gators, razor wire — and turned it into a prison so brutal, so theatrical, that it becomes part of the campaign. It is the campaign. Alligator Alcatraz isn’t just a facility. It’s a commercial. A threat. A fantasy. And the only reason more people aren’t calling it Alligator Auschwitz is because they’re too afraid of the implications — of what it means to admit that America is already back in the business of building camps.

When the media says “controversial,” they mean “unthinkable but happening.” When they say “deterrent,” they mean “torture as a warning shot.” And when they say “joke,” they’re pretending there’s still a line to be crossed. But there is no line. There is a swamp. And in it, thousands of people are vanishing behind a wall of heat, isolation, and performative indifference. This is the kind of place that future generations look back on and ask, “How did no one stop it?” And the only honest answer is: we didn’t want to believe it was real.

It is real. It is here. And it is happening in our name.

This is Alligator Auschwitz. And if we don’t call it what it is now, history will — with blood in its mouth..

Alligator Auschwitz
Trump built a concentration camp in the Everglades, filled it with tents, barbed wire, and migrants — then laughed about the alligators guarding it.

https://www.closertotheedge.net/p/alligator-auschwitz

Newsweek: Trump admin shares meme of ICE alligators outside Florida prison

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The Trump regime’s Carnival of Cruelty continues!

The Department of Homeland Security has shared an apparently AI-generated meme depicting alligators as ICE agents outside of a Florida detention center.

“Alligator Alcatraz” is a new migrant detention center being developed on a remote airstrip in the Everglades. The facility aims to house up to 5,000 detainees and uses the area’s natural isolation and wildlife as part of its security measures.

“Coming soon!” DHS said in a post on X.

…

The remote facility is expected to cost Florida approximately $450 million annually to operate. The proposal comes as President Donald Trump‘s administration looks to conduct what it describes as the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.

Critics say that the center’s remote location and rapid deployment raise ethical and legal questions about the treatment of migrants, transparency, and due process. Supporters say the project is a cost-efficient step to handle increased immigration enforcement.

The image shared by DHS shows alligators wearing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) baseball caps outside the fences of the detention center.

The meme and plans have sparked outrage from critics over inhumane conditions and concerns from environmental groups.

“A horrendous lack of humanity,” Georgetown lecturer Brett Bruen, who served as director of global engagement during the Obama administration, said in a post on X.

Former CIA officer Christopher Burgess described the post as “Disgusting.”

Trump admin shares meme of ICE alligators outside Florida prison
The image depicted the security of “Alligator Alcatraz,” which has become a flashpoint in the immigration debate.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admin-meme-ice-alligator-alcatraz-florida-2092148

Mediaite: WATCH: Trump Suggests He’ll Pressure CNN/NYT Reporters to Give Up Their Sources On Iran Strike Stories — And Then Prosecute the Leakers

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President Donald Trump is suggesting his administration will pressure reporters into giving up sources on their recent stories on the impact of the military strike on Iran — and then potentially prosecuting those sources.

In an interview on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Trump about a social media post on Thursday in which he wrote: “The Democrats are the ones who leaked the information on the PERFECT FLIGHT to the Nuclear Sites in Iran. They should be prosecuted!”

“They should be prosecuted,” Trump said again — in the Fox News interview which was taped on Friday and aired on Sunday.

“Who specifically?” Bartiromo asked.

“You can find out,” Trump said. “If they wanted, they could find out easily.”

The president has repeatedly come down on CNN and The New York Times in recent days for breaking stories on the impact of last Saturday’s attack on Iran — even threatening to sue them over reporting he has called “unpatriotic.” Both outlets reported on preliminary intelligence assessments which found that the damage of the strikes were far less than the president claimed.

Trump has repeatedly insisted three Iranian nuclear sites were “obliterated.” The preliminary intelligence assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency said the bombings only set Iran’s nuclear program back a few months.

Trump went on to explain how he would go about finding out the leakers.

“You go up and tell the reporter, ‘national security, who gave it?’” Trump said. “You have to do that. And I suspect we’ll be doing things like that.”

And I suspect the media response will be, “Go fuck yourself.” Trump was publicly applauding himself as the great victor and strategist, when in fact the bombings that he ordered were an abysmal flop.

Law & Crime: ‘Rightfully done and justly suffered’: Judge swats down Jan. 6 defendant’s restitution and fine return request

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A pardoned Jan. 6 defendant and former U.S. Marine who sought to recover fines and restitution he paid after his Capitol riot conviction got swatted down Friday by a federal judge, who reminded him that a pardon does not make one’s conviction or the exaction of monetary penalties “erroneous”  — meaning no refunds.

“As the Supreme Court explained in Knote … once a conviction has been ‘established by judicial proceedings,’ any penalties imposed are ‘presumed to have been rightfully done and justly suffered,’ regardless of whether the defendant later receives a pardon,” wrote U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in a nine-page order for defendant Hector Vargas Santos, 29, of Jersey City, New Jersey.

Suck it up, Bubba!

‘Not refundable’: Judge swats down Jan. 6 defendant’s restitution and fine return request
A pardoned Jan. 6 defendant and former U.S. Marine who sought to recover fines and restitution he paid after his Capitol riot conviction got swatted down Friday by a federal judge.
‘Not refundable’: Judge swats down Jan. 6 defendant’s restitution and fine return request, reminds him that pardon does not make one’s conviction or exaction ‘erroneous’

Daily Digest: Mexico Roars: Sheinbaum torches Kristi Noem over controversial comments

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… the Mexican President did not hesitate to put the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in her place.

In a message on her Twitter account, Sheinbaum was very firm: “In response to a question from a media outlet, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security mistakenly mentioned that I encouraged violent protests in Los Angeles. I inform you that this is absolutely false.”

Kristi Noem [hsf] accused the president during a press conference at the White House: “Claudia Sheinbaum came out and encouraged more protests in L.A., and I condemn her for that,” as reported by Reuters.

…

Sheinbaum has sought to distance herself from these events and address Kristi Noem’s accusations: “We do not agree with violent actions as a form of protest; the burning of police cars seems more like an act of provocation than resistance.”

Daily Digest: Mexico Roars: Sheinbaum torches Kristi Noem over controversial comments

https://thedailydigest.com/singapore/archivo/kristi-noem-sparks-international-feud-with-sheinbaum-mexico-hits-back-hard

Fox News: Trump blasts Powell, says any replacement would be better for refinancing $9T debt

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Former president vows to appoint someone who will slash interest rates to help refinance $9T in national debt

President Donald Trump said he would welcome anyone but Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to lower interest rates as the U.S. is faced with having to refinance about $9 trillion in debt.

Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo sat down with Trump for an interview that aired Sunday, when she asked the president how he was going to deal with the $9 trillion in debt that is due this year.

Trump said he was going to refinance the $9 trillion as short-term debt because “we have a stupid person” at the Federal Reserve.

The president explained his desire for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates so the U.S. does not have to pay for 10 years of debt at a higher rate.

Our root problem is that we have an extremely stupid child in the White House.

trump-blasts-powell-says-any-replacement-would-better-refinancing-9t-debt

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-blasts-powell-says-any-replacement-would-better-refinancing-9t-debt

Newsweek: Iranian woman who has lived in US for four decades detained by ICE

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Mandana Kashanian, a 64-year-old Iranian woman who came to the United States at 17 years old just ahead of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, was arrested by U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Sunday and is being in detention in Louisiana.

Newsweek has confirmed her detention in the ICE detainee database.

…

Kashanian came to the U.S. on a student visa on July 24, 1978 and “gained authorization to remain in the U.S. until May 31, 1983 by changing her status to that of a spouse of a nonimmigrant student” according to documents from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reviewed by Newsweek.

She eventually applied for asylum, but her claim was denied, according to the 2001 court documents. Her family told MSNBC that she applied for asylum and was denied multiple times. Kashanian has appealed several court decisions relating to her status as well as filing a motion to reopen appeals.

She married early on and then divorced. She then married Russ Milne, a U.S. citizen, in 1990 and the couple share a 32-year-old daughter together, who is also a U.S. citizen. Part of the complication of Kashanian’s status is due to her first marriage, which the court reported as “improper” and fraudulent, and subsequently interfered with her green card application once married to Milne.

Her father had worked as an engineer for the Shah in Tehran, according to Nola.com, and she claimed she would “experience extreme hardship if deported,” per court documents.

The local outlet said she was granted a stay of removal on the basis that she comply with immigration requirements, which her family says she has always met. Her husband told MSNBC on Friday that she has no criminal history.

She has lived in the states for almost 50 years, setting down roots in New Orleans. She shares Persian recipes on a YouTube channel, was involved in her daughter’s parent-teacher association, volunteered after Hurricane Katrina, and helps out family and neighbors, her husband told MSNBC.

On June 22, she was arrested by officers in unmarked vehicles, her neighbor Sarah Gerig, told Nola.com, noting that the arrest was less than a minute.

Kashanian is currently held in South Louisiana ICE processing center, according to the ICE database. The GEO Group runs the 1,000-person capacity facility located in Basile, Louisiana.

Iranian woman who has lived in US for four decades detained by ICE
Mandana Kashanian, who came to the U.S. as a teenager on a student visa in 1978, has been arrested by immigration officials and is in an ICE detention facility.

https://www.newsweek.com/iranian-woman-who-has-lived-us-four-decades-detained-ice-2092082

“Arrest Now, Ask Questions Later”: Why Did L.A. ICE Agents Arrest and Jail U.S. Citizen Andrea Velez?

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In an effort to fulfill the Trump administration’s daily immigration arrest “quotas,” federal agents and deputized local law enforcement are racially profiling and snatching people off the streets without due process. These arrests, carried out by armed and masked agents, are sowing terror and confusion in communities across the United States. Stephano Medina, a lawyer with the California Center for Movement Legal Services, shares how ICE regularly denies that it has taken people into custody, leading to family members scrambling for information about their loved ones. “It’s arrest now, ask questions later,” adds Dominique Boubion, an attorney representing Andrea Velez, a U.S. citizen who was taken by ICE last month in what Velez has since described as a “kidnapping.”

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org.

We go now to Los Angeles, where armed, masked federal agents have spent the last month carrying out arrests across the city. Families, immigrant advocates say they’re struggling to find their loved ones when they are disappeared. In one case, the family of a community activist and mother, Yuriana Juliana — they call her “Juli” — Pelaez Calderon, said she was taken at gunpoint on June 25th by two men in unmarked cars who pulled over as she went to work at night, which is uncommon. She used a borrowed phone to call her family to say she was taken to a warehouse where women are held alongside men. She compared the men who took her to bounty hunters and has not had proper food or access to her medication.

This is Stephano Medina, managing attorney with the L.A. office of California Center for Movement Legal Services.

STEPHANO MEDINA: So, DHS is out now saying that this is a hoax and that this is all made up, because they don’t have any record of Juli in their system, which I don’t doubt she’s not in their system. But Juli, in that phone call that she made to her family from a borrowed phone, told us that she was taken directly from where she was picked up in South Central Los Angeles to San Isidro, where she was presented to an ICE official and pressured to sign a voluntary self-deportation agreement.

AMY GOODMAN: Medina says Juli’s family filed a missing persons report with the L.A. Police Department as they continued their search for her.

Meanwhile, the family of Andrea Velez, a U.S. citizen, described her arrest by ICE last month as a “kidnapping.” Andrea had just been dropped off at work by her mom and her sister, when the pair witnessed masked federal agents grabbing her and taking Andrea in an unmarked car during an immigration raid. One video shows a masked agent lifting Andrea off the ground and carrying her away. Andrea’s sister, Estrella Rosas, spoke with CBS News Los Angeles.

ESTRELLA ROSAS: They didn’t have vests that said ICE or anything. Their cars didn’t have license plates. … Just because of the color of our skin, they think that we’re criminals. My sister was there, so they were like, “Oh, she looks Hispanic, so let’s take her, too.”

AMY GOODMAN: Ultimately, Andrea Velez was released, but was charged with assaulting a federal officer during her arrest. She spoke at a news conference last week.

ANDREA VELEZ: They didn’t identify themselves. I can’t go through it, but yeah, it was — I was just going to work. It was just a day of work, and, like, everything happened so fast. So, yeah, and they didn’t identify themselves, so I was kind of scared.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined in Los Angeles by Dominique Boubion. She is an attorney helping to represent Andrea Velez.

This is just such an astounding story. Dominique, can you explain what happened, as we watch her being carried with their arms under her chest, as she — walking forward? Where was she taken? Where was she held? How did you find out when she was disappeared and her family panicked?

DOMINIQUE BOUBION: Yes, of course. So, we were contacted by the family later that day, in the afternoon, because they had seen — the mother had seen her daughter being taken by ICE agents and hadn’t — but didn’t know they were ICE, had no idea who they were, and so they were terrified and looking for help just to locate her. And the video that you mentioned where she’s being lifted and carried up, that’s actually when she went to the police officers at LAPD asking for help, telling them, “These men are taking me.” So, I’ll back up and explain what happened.

AMY GOODMAN: Wait, wait, wait. If you can explain that point? We’re watching her being carried. Who is carrying her? And I do see police. I see the police cars, the LAPD. Who is carrying her?

DOMINIQUE BOUBION: So, that is an ICE agent. We now know it’s an ICE agent. And she was being carried away from the LAPD officers that she went over to for help, because she didn’t know who the men were or where she was being taken. She had no idea.

That morning, just minutes before, her mother had dropped her off at work on 9th and Main, downtown L.A. And as she exited the vehicle, she walked three, four steps onto the sidewalk, and suddenly there was a swarm of vehicles surrounding her. So, as she’s kind of getting her bearings what’s going on, she sees vendors over to her right, and she assumes, “OK, this must be — maybe it’s a raid. I don’t know.” She sees men approaching them. But she looks to her left, and she sees an ICE agent about 10 feet away, running full speed at her, and becomes terrified. She’s 4’11”. This is a man who, in her estimation, is over six feet. He’s masked. And he does not stop. So she becomes — she gets scared, and her reaction is to cover and block herself to protect herself, and she’s thrown to the ground.

The ICE agent continues on for about another 10, 15 seconds to get their target, and then returns and tells her she’s under arrest for what she describes as interfering. She gets put into a vehicle, a van, an unmarked van, and she’s in handcuffs. And while she’s waiting, she sees the officer, so she walks over to the officer and asks if he would help her. She doesn’t know who these men are. And that’s when you see the ICE agent pick her up and take her back to the unmarked van.

AMY GOODMAN: Why was she picked up, Dominique?

DOMINIQUE BOUBION: She — physically picked up, or why was she arrested?

AMY GOODMAN: Arrested.

DOMINIQUE BOUBION: So, what she is being charged with is assault on a peace officer. So, the version of the story that the federal agent is putting forth is that Andrea Velez purposefully walked into his path in order to protect whoever their target was, and knocked that ICE agent off balance and hit him in the head. It’s a complete fabrication, didn’t happen. And it, I believe, is more of a, number one, racial profiling. They were speaking to her in Spanish, even though she was demonstrating that she was — could speak fluent English and that she was a U.S. citizen. And I think it was a matter of “Let’s see if she is a U.S. citizen. And if she is, then we’ll slap on these charges.” It’s an issue of — it’s arrest now, ask questions later.

AMY GOODMAN: So, straight-up racial profiling?

DOMINIQUE BOUBION: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Andrea Velez has — she’s a darker-skinned Latino. And 100%, I believe that this was racial profiling.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. We’ll continue to follow this case, Dominique Boubion, one of the attorneys helping to represent Andrea Velez, a U.S. citizen arrested by ICE. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.

“Arrest Now, Ask Questions Later”: ICE Agents Arrest and Jail U.S. Citizen Andrea Velez
In an effort to fulfill the Trump administration’s daily immigration arrest “quotas,” federal agents and deputized local law enforcement are racially profiling and snatching people off the streets without due process. These arrests, carried out by armed and masked agents, are sowing terror and confusion in communities across the United States. Stephano Medina, a lawyer with the California Center for Movement Legal Services, shares how ICE regularly denies that it has taken people into custody, leading to family members scrambling for information about their loved ones. “It’s arrest now, ask questions later,” adds Dominique Boubion, an attorney representing Andrea Velez, a U.S. citizen who was taken by ICE last month in what Velez has since described as a “kidnapping.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/2/ice_abductions_masked_men_andrea_velez

Guardian: Ice arrests of US military veterans and their relatives are on the rise: ‘a country that I fought for’

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As Trump urges more deportations, veterans are seeing their parents, children and even themselves detained

The son of an American citizen and military veteran – but who has no citizenship to any country – was deported from the US to Jamaica in late May.

Jermaine Thomas’s deportation, recently reported on by the Austin Chronicle, is one of a growing number of immigration cases involving military service members’ relatives or even veterans themselves who have been ensnared in the Trump administration’s mass deportation program.

As the Chronicle reported, Thomas was born on a US army base in Germany to an American citizen father, who was originally born in Jamaica and is now dead. Thomas does not have US, German or Jamaican citizenship – but Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency deported him anyway to Jamaica, a country in which he had never set foot.

Thomas had spent two-and-a-half months incarcerated while waiting for an update on his case. He was previously at the center of a case brought before the US supreme court regarding his unique legal status.

The federal government argued that Thomas – who had previously received a deportation order – was not a citizen simply because he was born on a US army base, and it used prior criminal convictions to buttress the case against him. He petitioned for a review of the order, but the supreme court denied him, finding his father “did not meet the physical presence requirement of the [law] in force at the time of Thomas’s birth”.

…

In another recent case, the wife of another Marine Corps veteran was detained by Ice despite still breastfeeding her three-month-old daughter. According to the Associated Press, the veteran’s wife had been going through a process to obtain legal residency.

…

In March, Ice officials arrested the daughter of a US veteran who had been fighting a legal battle regarding her status. Alma Bowman, 58, was taken into custody by Ice during a check-in at the Atlanta field office, despite her having lived in the US since she was 10 years old.

Bowman was born in the Philippines during the Vietnam war, to a US navy service member from Illinois stationed there. She had lived in Georgia for almost 50 years. Her permanent residency was revoked following a minor criminal conviction from 20 years ago, leading her to continue a legal battle to obtain citizenship in the US.

…

In another recent case, a US army veteran and green-card holder left on his own to South Korea. His deportation order was due to charges related to drug possession and an issue with drug addiction after being wounded in combat in the 1980s, for which he earned the prestigious Purple Heart citation.

“I can’t believe this is happening in America,” Sae Joon Park, who had held legal permanent residency, told National Public Radio. “That blows me away – like, [it is] a country that I fought for.”

Ice arrests of US military veterans and their relatives are on the rise: ‘a country that I fought for’
As Trump urges more deportations, veterans are seeing their parents, children and even themselves detained

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/28/us-military-veterans-detained-trump