You’ve by now, no dount, seen the news about an internment camp in the Everglades, not-so-charmingly called “Alligator Alcatraz” or “Alligator Auschwitz.”

I’ve seen some commentary online, too, objecting to the idea that it’s a concentration camp.

When most of us think about a concentration camp, our minds go to Auschwitz or Dachau, but the reality is, those were not only concentration camps; they were also extermination camps.

To our knowledge, there is not, at this time, a mechanism in place for such exterminations at this camp.

So, then, is “Alligator Alcatraz” a concentration camp?

Well, yes. It is. And here’s why:

According to Encyclopedia Brittanica, a concentration camp is “an internment center for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial.”

Let’s break that down.

Is “Alligator Alcatraz” an “internment center for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups”?

On its website, ICE admits — although that’s far too sheepish a word — it breaks down arrests by country of citizenship.

Are those imprisoned there “confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, punishment”?

Our president has made it clear the cleansing of immigrants is a matter os state security, and this facility imprisons members of minority groups. Does that mean they’re political prisoners? That’s how I interpret their confinement. If we’re putting people in prison for matters of state security, that’s political, right?

Are the people there because of an “executive decree or military order”?

They are there by order of the president of the United States of America.

Are people there “on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals”?

Yes.

Are the people at “Alligator Alcatraz”  there “without benefit either of indictment or fair trial“?

Yes. No one there has had a trial.

Has This Happened Before in Florida?

Yes. During the Voyage of Tears — part of the Trail of Tears — the U.S. military captured Florida’s first people — the Seminole and Miccosukee — and held them at Egmont Key. Some refer to it, as that website explains, as “our Alcatraz.”

For this, the U. S. government agreed to pay $56 million in reparations in 1991. 

The Seminole and Miccosukee Don’t Want To See History Repeated

Today, the internment camp — aka “Alligator Alcatraz” — is in the middle of ancestral land. Both the Florida Seminole and the Florida Miccosukee —  and the Seminole Nation in Oklahoma — have openly protested this desecration of their ancestral homeland.

“Rather than Miccosukee homelands being an uninhabited wasteland for alligators and pythons, as some have suggested, the Big Cypress is the Tribe’s traditional homelands,” Miccosukee Tribal Chairman Talbert Cypress said in a statement. “The landscape has protected the Miccosukee and Seminole people for generations.”

The Everglades is a vast and glorious wilderness, and one of my favorite places on the planet. But I get to go there willingly, and I can go prepared.

Remember, from May 1940 until September 2, 1941, Auschwitz was “only” a concentration camp for “professional criminals.”

On September 3, 1941, the military started gassing those prisoners.

For the people held at “Alligator Alcatraz” without the benefit of due process, and for no reason other than their country of birth, the biggest threat isn’t the wilderness, or the gators and pythons.

It’s us.

Please take a moment to read this wonderful piece on what Big Cypress means to the people who live there.