Florida's new Senate Democratic Leader, Lori Berman, sent a Friday letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis comparing the "Alligator Alcatraz" detention center to a "makeship prison camp" that may violate the U.S. Constitution.
Berman, hastily elected to lead Senate Democrats in the hours after Sen. Jason Pizzo suddenly abandoned the role and quit the party, referred to the state's quick construction on a new migrant detention facility in the Everglades, nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" by Attorney General James Uthmeier.
In a two-page letter sent to DeSantis and Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie, Berman worried that detaining people "who have done nothing wrong" in the sweltering heat could violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
"This makeshift prison camp has the potential to be a disaster for both the state of Florida and the detainees forced to reside there," Berman wrote, criticizing the governor for announcing the facility after the legislative session ended, preventing lawmakers from exercising "our oversight function."
"Setting up a makeshift prison camp in the Everglades has the potential to expose detainees—many of whom may have done nothing wrong, especially with the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status—to conditions that could constitute cruel and unusual punishment," Berman continued.
Just a week after Uthmeier announced his plans to convert the defunct Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport into the swamp version of Alcatraz for undocumented immigrants, Immigration and Customs Enforcement approved the center.
Staffed by 100 National Guardsmen, it will be up and running on July 1.
On Friday, hours after Berman sent her letter, DeSantis toured Alligator Alcatraz with FOX News, where he revealed the facility will hold up to 3,000 captured migrants.
"If a criminal alien were to escape from here somehow...you've got nowhere to go. What are you gonna do? Trudge the swamp and dodge alligators on your way back, and walk 50, 60 miles back to civilization?" DeSantis said. "It's not gonna happen."
