{"id":175646,"date":"2025-09-23T06:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T06:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/175646\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T06:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T06:15:07","slug":"alligator-alcatraz-donald-trump-and-the-everglades-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/175646\/","title":{"rendered":"Alligator Alcatraz, Donald Trump and the Everglades \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published: Sept 22, 2025, 4:30 p.m. MDT<\/p>\n

We gathered in some forgettable parking lot, the six of us, and climbed into Lorenzo\u2019s Ford. That beat-up, forest-green, 1990-something F-150 extended cab with its makeshift door handle \u2014 a metal bolt tied to a string. Four of us scrambled into the back, while Lorenzo sat shotgun and Richard drove, eager for a crack at the manual transmission. <\/p>\n

I carried an orange-handled fillet knife on my belt, deputized as the only one who really liked fishing to lead us to a good spot. Truth be told, when we set out from Miami headed west on U.S. Highway 41, I didn\u2019t know where we were going. All I knew was that out that way, there was plenty of water and not much supervision, so out that way we went. <\/p>\n

We passed the Miccosukee tribal casino, marking the end of municipal sprawl and the beginning of the Florida Everglades, where the salty breeze gives way to the thick, heavy air of the swamp. We passed levies and dams and tourist traps hawking airboat rides. But mostly, we passed little at all \u2014 mile after uninterrupted mile of brown sawgrass, peppered by occasional street signs. <\/p>\n

Those signs included one, unnoticed at the time, for the \u201cDade-Collier Training and Transition Airport\u201d \u2014 a space that would later host the immigration detention facility known to the nation as \u201cAlligator Alcatraz.\u201d<\/p>\n

Announced in June 2025 by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier \u2014 and enthusiastically backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis \u2014 Alligator Alcatraz became a summer-long political battleground. By fall, its future was uncertain<\/a>. <\/p>\n

A federal judge in Miami ordered it closed by late October for violating environmental laws. The state appealed, with backing from 21 other Republican-led states, to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, where judges halted the injunction while they mull over the state\u2019s argument. Meanwhile, state officials plan to \u201cramp up\u201d the operation with the dispute stuck in court. <\/p>\n

I of course couldn\u2019t imagine the place we were headed would ever be national news, or a flashpoint in a heated argument over immigration policy. I couldn\u2019t imagine it would ever even have a name. To me, it was just a fishing hole. <\/p>\n

Our first spot, which I chose, was a dud. We caught a few small fish, which felt worse than catching nothing, given the day\u2019s expectations. Piling back into Lorenzo\u2019s Ford, we hit the road again and stopped at what looked to us like an abandoned campsite. At the campsite\u2019s center was a rock pit lake \u2014 a big hole in the ground with shallow, uniform banks that dropped into a deep, black abyss. <\/p>\n

Similar lakes dimple neighborhoods across South Florida because they allow for land development: The earth pulled from the lakes is used to elevate the surrounding swampland and make it habitable. But the left-behind lakes can themselves become ideal habitats, too. This one was full to the brim with dozens of alligators, their telltale eyes and noses jutting from the still water in every direction, and their deep, bellowing clicks echoing every now and then from hideaways seen and unseen. A few paddled along slowly with their mighty tails. <\/p>\n

Lorenzo had brought raw chicken breasts to use as fish bait, warm and sticky, but being 18 (or close to it), curiosity nudged us toward a different application. I rummaged through my tacklebox and found the biggest hooks I had \u2014 some completely impractical monstrosities designed to catch sharks. I fastened one to the end of a six-inch steel leader, then sliced off a chunk of chicken with my knife. <\/p>\n

It was swallowed immediately by a juvenile gator, maybe three feet long. We reeled until our line howled like a fast-closing zipper. The gator fought. It thrashed. And Oscar referenced Hemingway\u2019s \u201cThe Old Man and the Sea,\u201d which we\u2019d all read in eighth grade. We needed to respect our catch, Oscar said, just as Santiago, the novella\u2019s protagonist, respected the marlin he\u2019d battled. <\/p>\n

Instead, when that gator got too close to shore, we cut the line and ran. I\u2019ve often thought about how, at the bottom of that rock-pit lake, a young gator\u2019s skeleton probably rests with that big hook still lodged in the bones of its throat. <\/p>\n

A part of me doesn\u2019t really want to stare down the contrast between this vision I built \u2014 this monument to an idealized future full of thrills and potential \u2014 and what\u2019s really lurking out there.<\/p>\n

We decided to go home, but we made one last stop at an isolated convenience store on the way. It stood beside a dusty ramp into a canal, and we could see fish in the amber-tinted water, so we decided to give this fishing thing one more try. What followed was the best fishing day of our lives. <\/p>\n

We caught everything. Two, three at a time. Largemouth and peacock bass. Giant bowfin. Even a chain pickerel. That spot, starting right then, became my go-to honey hole. I went back again and again. I brought friends old and new. My uncle. My dad. Even my wife. <\/p>\n

That day in 2014 also marked, for me, a taste of what felt like true freedom. We were just kids in a beat-up Ford with busted handles, chasing fish we barely knew how to catch, and gators too. We agonized over our future constantly, every one of us. We all wanted to be successful, whatever that might mean. We all worried about getting there. But for a few hours, it didn\u2019t matter where we\u2019d end up. <\/p>\n

Eventually we headed home, once more traversing sun-bleached U.S. 41, where we\u2019d passed that sign for the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport that, 12 years later, would be replaced by a new, more menacing one.<\/p>\n

What once is lost<\/p>\n

The first group of detained migrants arrived at what used to be an abandoned airstrip on July 3, 2025. The facility, nicknamed \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d by Florida\u2019s branding-forward attorney general, boasted an initial capacity of 3,000 with room to expand. <\/p>\n

Its construction was spearheaded by DeSantis, who sees it as a crucial step in helping implement the mass deportations favored by President Donald Trump and Republican leaders. Trump himself toured the facility on July 1, saying \u201cit might be as good as the real Alcatraz.\u201d And Florida\u2019s attorney general has touted the detention center\u2019s natural perimeter \u2014 a landscape stalked by sharp-toothed, muscular beasts. <\/p>\n

The alligators, snakes and isolation make escape unthinkable \u2014 not to mention terrifying, which is the point. He and fellow Republicans have used that fact to market Alligator Alcatraz merchandise online, including hats, T-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons and more. According to one official, it\u2019s \u201cselling like hotcakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few more miles down U.S. 41 is a roadside stop called the Big Cypress Gallery. Founded by fine art photographer Clyde Butcher, the compound, built right into a dense cypress stand, hosts art exhibits, vacation rentals and \u201cswamp walks.\u201d Back in December 2023, the latter brought me to the gallery, and to Scott Randolph. <\/p>\n

He lives nearby and leads paying visitors like me on wet, waist-deep slogs through the slow-moving murk. Out there, in the deep middle of the Big Cypress National Preserve and the larger Everglades ecosystem, the sloshing of our pants through the still water was by far the loudest noise within earshot. Every bird could be heard. I wondered whether any of that had changed since Alligator Alcatraz opened, so I reached out to Scott. \u201cThe impacts here,\u201d he wrote via email, \u201care impossible to ignore.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Everglades conservationists know all too well, once something is lost, it can be nearly impossible to restore what was.<\/p>\n

On July 13, he participated in a protest at the gallery, along with hundreds of others. The protesters focused almost entirely on the facility\u2019s environmental impact. \u201cThis ecosystem has already been crippled by human interference, reduced to less than half of its original size,\u201d Scott wrote. \u201cTo now propose cramming 3,000 to 5,000 people into its fragile core is not only reckless \u2014 it is an outright assault on one of the world\u2019s most vital and vanishing landscapes.\u201d His thinking reflects a decades-long tension, brought explosively back into the spotlight. <\/p>\n

What is now Alligator Alcatraz was built atop an airstrip first constructed in 1968, intended as the beginning of a new jetport. But by the mid-1970s, the project had been abandoned. \u201cIt was established in 1975 that you can\u2019t have anything like that,\u201d Butcher told me recently. \u201cThere were all these environmental studies back in the \u201960s and \u201970s that said this was not acceptable.\u201d <\/p>\n

Advocates have since convinced the state to earmark billions toward Everglades restoration projects. But Alligator Alcatraz is a major setback. \u201cThe first thing that really got me mad was they said this is a disgusting, horrible place with alligators and snakes. That it\u2019s no good for anything,\u201d Butcher said. \u201cI\u2019ve spent 40 years trying to convince everybody it\u2019s a beautiful place. It\u2019s probably the most beautiful place in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s striking indeed to contrast Butcher\u2019s work, defined by arresting black-and-white landscapes of the Everglades that invite viewers into the distinctive space, against Alligator Alcatraz merch that uses bold lettering and glowing red eyes to convey fear and brand the Everglades as a space of inescapable suffering. Butcher\u2019s portraits decorated the walls of my childhood home, and still hang in my parents\u2019 hallway. Yet I haven\u2019t really noticed them in a long time. <\/p>\n

What I do see driving around Florida are Alligator Alcatraz bumper stickers, embodying the aggressive, cartoonish encouragement from state leaders to \u201ckeep Florida tough on crime and tougher on borders,\u201d per<\/a> a fundraising email from the Republican Party of Florida; to paint the Everglades as \u201cgator guarded\u201d and \u201cpython-patrolled.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Alligator Alcatraz merchandise encouraged by political leaders supporting the immigration detention center is “selling like hotcakes,\u201d says one official. | Ethan Bauer <\/p>\n

Republicans argue that failed Biden-era immigration policies need to be corrected quickly, hence the need for a place like Alligator Alcatraz; that it\u2019s a moral duty to facilitate the will of voters, and deport immigrants in the country illegally as quickly as possible. Opponents, meanwhile, largely view this approach as undignified and inhumane. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe cruelty is the point,\u201d said Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz during a July press conference. \u201cThis is a stunt. I mean, dropping flimsy infrastructure in the middle of the Everglades, in a swamp where they bragged about it being surrounded by alligators and pythons, I mean, the whole point is to look tough.\u201d <\/p>\n

And to many, it does. To many, this is what immigration enforcement, and the country more broadly, should look like. But not to Scott Randolph. \u201cWhen we strip others of that dignity, we strip it from ourselves,\u201d he told me. \u201cThe decision to place this facility in the heart of the Everglades only compounds the injustice.\u201d <\/p>\n

As Trump\u2019s cultural revolution continues, big change is undeniably here. But however you feel about the changes, it\u2019s also worth remembering \u2014 as Everglades conservationists know all too well \u2014 that once something is lost, it can be nearly impossible to restore what was.<\/p>\n

A paradise all its own<\/p>\n

Within view of the entrance to Alligator Alcatraz, U.S. 41 curves at a diagonal angle. It continues at that angle for about 10 miles before curving back toward its original, straight-across-the-state trajectory. There, at that second curve, lies the convenience store that offered refuge to my young self all those years ago and in all the years since. <\/p>\n

Named Tippy\u2019s Outpost after a Miccosukee alligator wrestler, it serves hot food, including fried gator nuggets, alongside baked goods, cold drinks, air fresheners, potato chips and a modest stock of fishing hooks, bobbers and monofilament. I\u2019ve rarely been inside. Over the years, Tippy\u2019s became, for me, more a point of orientation than a place to shop. A dot on the map that told me I had arrived where I needed to be. Unlike back in high school, once I found Tippy\u2019s, I always knew where I was going when I set off down U.S. 41.<\/p>\n

Tippy\u2019s itself is modest: One small room, with some outdoor seating running parallel to a canal out back that meets a boat ramp and, past some colossal cell towers rusting in the sun, opens up into a much larger body of water that brushes up against a human-made levy. The boat ramp and levy alike attract fish, giving Tippy\u2019s an angling turbocharge.<\/p>\n

\"\"The author on a fishing trip with friends in the area where a controversial immigration detention center would be built 12 years later. | Ethan Bauer <\/p>\n

In South Florida, freshwater fishing is already paradise. From native largemouth to Amazon-imported peacock bass, the climate breeds abundance. So much so that people release their overgrown pets, leading to certain aquarium fish thriving across the Everglades. But there are also less common catches \u2014 red-bellied pacu, tiger shovelnose catfish or, God help you, Burmese python, which I\u2019ve seen dead on the road not far from Tippy\u2019s. With vultures perched on the rusted cell towers, insects rattling away in the sawgrass, and the slimy stink of fish assaulting both nostrils and hands, Tippy\u2019s is a subset of paradise all its own.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s where I brought my dad and uncle for days spent together, just the three of us. Where I came alone during winter break in grad school, desperate to reconnect with the landscape I loved. And it\u2019s where I\u2019ve encountered the Everglades\u2019 apex predator countless times \u2014 alligators that have chased me, attracted by the slapping sound of my catches breaking the water\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve watched them slither across the glassy canal, then rise up on their awkward wiener dog legs to growl and attempt thievery. Once, when I tried to retreat, my line snapped. My catch splatted onto the ground, and a hungry gator lumbered over, snatching it in toothy jaws. <\/p>\n

The poor fish could only release the involuntary, desperate sound of a deflating tire as the gator punctured its swim bladder before slurping it down whole. That sound \u2014 the sound of death \u2014 echoes still in my memory. In the Everglades, the strong chase the easiest prey, and the prey disappears with a whimper. <\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t know about such dangers during that first trip. When someone\u2019s fishing line snagged on a rock, Lorenzo was willing \u2014 hesitantly \u2014 to dive into the murk and free it. He shed his sleeveless shirt and the thick, black eyeglasses he\u2019d worn as long as I\u2019d known him and walked his short, lean frame into the muddy trench, kicking up a trail of fine sediment. For just a second, he disappeared beneath the haze, then emerged, hook in hand \u2014 and without any bite marks. <\/p>\n

I returned throughout young adulthood because the canal behind Tippy\u2019s gave shape to the life I wanted. Here, I felt most American, and most human \u2014 most grateful to be alive. Here was a refuge where I could escape hardship and complexity, either alone or with friends brave enough to swim with alligators. <\/p>\n

While the Tippy\u2019s of my memory still exists out there in the Everglades, so does this new, competing vision of what the Everglades could become.<\/p>\n

Now a part of me dreads heading out that way again. A part of me doesn\u2019t really want to stare down the contrast between this vision I built \u2014 this monument to an idealized future full of thrills and potential \u2014 and what\u2019s really lurking out there. <\/p>\n

Long shadows<\/p>\n

Was I always just happy to ignore difficult things? As a teenager and beyond, were my visits to Tippy\u2019s just a way to tune out the less approachable, more uncomfortable parts of the world? That very day we first drove out there, after all, we passed something else unknown to us at the time: Krome Detention Center, a facility that\u2019s likewise located right off U.S. 41, directly across from the Miccosukee casino \u2014 and has existed since the Cuban Missile Crisis.<\/p>\n

I put this question recently to Domingo, one friend among the six who were there that day. \u201cYou know,\u201d he told me, \u201cit\u2019s funny you mention that.\u201d His memory of the Everglades, it turned out, was colored less by that day, and more by snapshots of correctional facility vehicles he\u2019d sometimes see in the area. \u201cI mean, obviously, I thought it was kind of a gimmick when I first heard about \u2018Alligator Alcatraz,\u2019 he adds, \u201cbut it was interesting because I always kind of associated (that area) with a prison.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowadays, Domingo\u2019s an EMT. Richard, so eager to drive Lorenzo\u2019s stick shift back then, is a lawyer who drives a Corvette \u2014 with, he adds proudly, a manual transmission. Lorenzo himself has a doctorate in materials science engineering. Our sixth friend, John, is about to become a doctor. Oscar leads a tech startup. We\u2019ve all grown into those futures that seemed limitless when we romped up and down U.S. 41.<\/p>\n

In a different part of \u201cThe Old Man and the Sea,\u201d Hemingway writes that \u201ca man can be destroyed but not defeated.\u201d Oscar didn\u2019t quote that passage back then, but it applies to the area\u2019s transformation. That day in 2014, we surrendered when that hooked gator got too close. Yet that day also told its own story of resilience. Of learning from mistakes. Of determination \u2014 to find fish later on, and to never purposely hook a gator again.<\/p>\n

Just as that water surrounding Tippy\u2019s revealed its treasures \u2014 the bass, the bowfin, the pickerel \u2014 it now reveals something else: that places, and people, can harbor conflicting visions at once. Paradise and prison can coexist in disturbing proximity. And while the Tippy\u2019s of my memory still exists out there in the Everglades, so does this new, competing vision of what the Everglades could become. <\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t gone back to Tippy\u2019s since Alligator Alcatraz was constructed, but I will. I expect it will be different, will feel different. Even if the camp is eventually shut down, it will cast long shadows over this place. I\u2019ve changed, and so, to some extent, has the world. But I also know that out that way, there\u2019s still plenty of water, plenty of life, so out that way I will go. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: Sept 22, 2025, 4:30 p.m. MDT We gathered in some forgettable parking lot, the six of us,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[8793,79,201],"class_list":["post-175646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-news-feed-national","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}