Noem’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ wastes deportation funds on swamp theater

In the middle of directing the most underwhelming deportation effort in modern American history, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has now decided to play swamp games.

Literally.

Rather than investing in a durable, institutional enforcement backbone capable of sustaining President Donald Trump’s mass deportation mandate, Noem is shoveling detention funds into a pop-up project in a Florida swamp – proudly dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” It’s not a joke. It’s an insult.

Let’s be clear: the heart of the Trump immigration agenda is mass deportation. That requires infrastructure like beds, buses and planes. And when it comes to beds, we’re talking real detention facilities and actual jails, not circus tents surrounded by reptiles.

ABOUT THOSE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES

So why is Noem building a “soft-sided” facility in an ecologically fragile mosquito pit, 45 miles from downtown Miami? Why is she seeking to sideline ICE’s institutional partners with decades of experience and instead cutting side deals with states desperate for political brownie points?

To be clear, this isn’t a critique of Florida’s historic leadership on immigration enforcement at the state-level. The concern is what could happen next.

Noem has publicly said she bypassed traditional vendors because she felt they were “too expensive” and not offering “fair prices.” So, she turned to Republican governors to see if they could do it cheaper. In her words: “I went directly to states and asked them if they could do a better job providing this service.” She’s now courting states and companies with zero ICE experience, hoping for a discount detention revolution.

It’s a fantasy. Department of Homeland Security appropriations require that a typical ICE bed costs no more than $165/day. The 5,000-bed “Alligator Alcatraz,” with its rushed timeline, chain-link zip-tie setup, and alligator-adjacent location is estimated at $450 million for a year. Do the math, and with a bed costing $250/day you’ll see a costly press hit in the Everglades.

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This isn’t cost-cutting. It’s theater.

Worse, it’s dangerous.

By spending limited detention funds on temporary, politicized state projects, Noem is wasting the best opportunity in decades to entrench custodial detention as a permanent part of our immigration system. We need the opposite of soft enforcement: purpose-built facilities that can’t be dismantled by the next Democrat with a pen and a press conference.

If temporary staging space is truly needed, there are already tools available: state and local jails, which had an estimated 247,000 open beds nationwide as of mid-2023, can be contracted at scale to bridge the gap – without wasting permanent money on corruptible, short-lived camps built for headlines.

WE STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN

Instead, Noem is laying out the red carpet for future abuse. These hastily assembled facilities, staffed by non-traditional vendors and unvetted state contractors, are ripe for failure, mismanagement and corruption. And if the White House ever flips blue again? Good luck explaining why a Republican administration used its deportation mandate to build shiny new processing centers tailor-made for an invasion sequel.

Don’t believe us? Look how they’re funding it. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program (SSP) has set aside $625 million to fund the state effort initially, a senior official said. This is the same program President Joe Biden used to support local governments and left-wing NGOs to house, feed, and transport illegal aliens released and processed by her predecessor and “criminals only” compadre, Alejandro Mayorkas.

Let’s say it plainly: the obsession with “criminal optics” is blinding this department. Noem wants splashy headlines and snake pit visuals to suggest something bold is happening. But bold isn’t tents in the Everglades.

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Bold is building and activating over 100,000 permanent detention beds. Bold is viewing every illegal alien as a priority. Bold is preparing for permanence, not pretending that mass deportation can be done in a couple years.

The backdrop for all this? Noem has been gallivanting through Central America bragging about “safe third country agreements” that, according to the countries themselves, don’t exist. Meanwhile, she’s promising to “solve” illegal immigration in one administration while undermining the very infrastructure that would make that possible. 

If she really believes the problem ends in four years, she’s already failed her boss and the American people.

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What we need isn’t a secretary obsessed with optics. We need a builder. A planner. Someone who sees detention infrastructure not as a backdrop for press tours, but as the steel spine of a long-overdue mass deportation effort.

This isn’t South Dakota. It’s the Department of Homeland Security. And the job isn’t to look tough. It’s to be tough – quietly, permanently and at scale.

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