Late Sunday afternoon — for the 28th consecutive week — clergy, immigrant advocates and others held a vigil outside "Alligator Alcatraz," calling on state and federal authorities to close the immigrant detention center, free detainees and end "the immoral" apprehension of immigrants by federal agents.
The latest vigil was organized by the Rev. Roy Terry of Naples-based Cornerstone United Methodist Church and included family members of detainees, union groups and students. The Rev. Lydia Muñoz of El Plan Latino in Washington, D.C., also joined the vigil.
"For six months we have gathered every week outside the gates of 'Alligator Alcatraz' to oppose this unconscionable violence and harm this detention center represents and insist it end," Terry said in a statement.
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"Every one of us has a responsibility to speak out against this inhumanity, which is contrary to the primary command of all faiths to love our neighbor and contrary to the rights, freedom, and accountability that are at the heart of America's promise."
State and federal officials have dismissed claims made from immigrant advocates and others in lawsuits alleging mistreatment of immigrant detainees and other alleged human right violations at "Alligator Alcatraz."
Last summer, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration raced to build the facility on an isolated airstrip surrounded by wetlands to aid President Donald Trump's efforts to deport people in the U.S. illegally. The governor said the location in the rugged and remote Everglades was meant as a deterrent against escape, much like the island prison in California that Republicans named it after.
Trump toured the facility in July and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration pushed to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations. It has since been the target of multiple federal lawsuits seeking to shutter the remote compound of tents and trailers.
"The real-life human rights disaster [DeSantis] has created, that has been funded by (Florida) taxpayers, has undermined our constitutional rights, inhumanely detained and even tortured people, and torn families and communities apart — it must stop," said Noelle Damico, director of social justice at the New York-based Workers Circle, a Jewish social justice organization.
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