Does human decency require us to house detainees closer to civilization than southern Florida? I hardly think so.
Donald Trump has gone and done it again, getting the media world’s dander up by endorsing the idea of a federal detention center for illegal aliens set in the middle of the Florida Everglades, surrounded by all the typically hostile creatures that make their homes there. (I would honestly worry less about the gators than the enormous pythons and malarial insects myself.) The nickname activists decided to give to this (preexisting) site is “Alligator Alcatraz,” which is arguably the stupidest choice possible if you’re trying to repel Trump; this is a man, after all, who last month announced his intention to reopen the real Alcatraz.
Little wonder then that Trump would lean into the idea of “Alligator Alcatraz” — the same idea on a budget! When questioned about it by the media, he jested that of course the alligators were there to eat anyone who tried to escape, and advised anyone thinking of it to zig-zag instead of running in a straight line should they encounter one.
It was typical Trump, and the usual media suspects have handled this with as much dignity as you would have expected, accusing Trump of glorying in inflicting boundless cruelty upon downtrodden illegals by housing them in unpleasant weather. Noah Rothman mused yesterday about whether Florida’s climate properly qualifies as “cruel and inhumane” on its own terms, and of course it does — but then the same could be said of any state south of the Mason-Dixon line during the summer, and many of these people were previously being sent to central Louisiana, where the climate gives south Florida a run for its money. All of these lands may have long been populated by humans, but they were only recently civilized by air-conditioning (and then only partially).
The Nation promptly denounced this as “abominable sadism” and as Trump’s “Alligator Auschwitz” — a comparison that deserves to be mocked but not addressed — and most of the rest of the coverage was primarily outraged by the idea that Trump would be detaining illegal aliens in an unpleasant place. But prisons and detention centers are supposed to be in unpleasant locations whenever possible, for the exact reason of potential escapees. Rikers Island is on an island for a reason. ADX Florence, America’s lone remaining supermax prison, is located on the isolated plateau far south of Denver — for a reason. The U.S. Penitentiary in Marion is located in downstate Illinois — a barren and unforgiving land impossible for humanity to survive in — for a reason.
Does human decency require us to house detainees closer to civilization than southern Florida or the state of Illinois? I hardly think so. Or is the idea that we owe them at least a sporting chance of escape? I don’t believe that either. There is a significant lack of available detention space in America right now for illegals being processed through deportation — kidding aside, this is perhaps Trump’s most pressing logistical problem when it comes to mass deportations — and quickly building new installations to house these people is a necessity. Building in the middle of nowhere, where these people — many with violent criminal records, and most with final deportation orders already entered against them — are less likely to escape and disappear once more into the crowd is a perfectly respectable goal.
So I salute the idea of Alligator Alcatraz, and suggest only that they place a few warning notices around the premises to warn people of the potential danger. For fans of the James Bond series, I suggest the signage employed by Mr. Big from Live and Let Die’s crocodile farm: “TRESPASSERS WILL BE EATEN.”