No Escape. No Mercy.

Welcome to Alligator Alcatraz

Jun 30, 2025

When meme-fueled cruelty becomes federal policy, it’s no longer satire. It’s a blueprint for dehumanization.

Christy here. I didn’t want to give this oxygen. I really didn’t. Sharing things like this feels like feeding the fire. Evil doesn’t just grow on its own—it metastasizes in silence, in apathy, in polite avoidance. And I didn’t want to be the one to help it spread. But then I read the comments.

Not just one or two. All of them. And what I found wasn’t just a thread of jokes or a meme gone too far. It was a living autopsy of what we’ve become.

A public figure with hundreds of thousands of followers shared a meme that looked like a movie poster: “Alligator Alcatraz.” A futuristic prison sits in the middle of a swamp, and the water around it is filled with dozens of gators swimming straight toward the viewer.

Big bold letters: No escape. No mercy. Coming this summer.

And below it?

Laughter. Joy. Celebration.

Not in spite of the cruelty, but because of it.

People weren’t disgusted—they were thrilled.

“Feed them a steady diet of humans.”
“I hear they like Mexican.”
“Hope Hillary and Bill are the first in.”
“Cheap way to feed the alligators.”
“Fence not needed. Gators gotta eat.”
“Make gator tacos.”
“MAGA: Making Alligators Great Again.

See for yourself.

This isn’t dark humor.

It’s fascist fantasy in meme form.

And the worst part is—it worked.

They got their clicks.

Their giggles.

Their dopamine hit of dehumanization.

And literally, in a matter of days?

They’re set to get the real thing.

The Joke Became a Jail

This week, the state of Florida confirmed plans to build a massive detention facility in the middle of the Everglades.

Real location. Real blueprints. Real people. Real tents.

They’re calling it “Alligator Alcatraz.”

That wasn’t just a meme—it was a manifesto.

The site is a decommissioned airstrip in Big Cypress National Preserve.

The plan?

Dump thousands of migrants and asylum seekers into a heat-choked swamp, surround them with razor wire, guard towers, and yes—alligators—and leave them there.

Nature as a prison wall.

The swamp as a punishment.

No escape. No mercy.

Just Like Daddy Trump Ordered

This wasn’t debated.

It wasn’t voted on.

It wasn’t vetted by the public, Indigenous leaders, or even most lawmakers.

Ron DeSantis bypassed all of it.

With the stroke of a pen, he declared an immigration “state of emergency” in May—handing himself sweeping powers to act unilaterally.

And he didn’t waste a second.

He seized a decommissioned airstrip inside the Big Cypress National Preserve, no environmental review, no tribal consultation, no legislative approval.

Just a swamp, a razor wire budget, and a political stunt masquerading as a crisis response.

The funding? That’s you and me, babe.

A grotesque blend of state emergency funds and FEMA reimbursements, to the tune of $450 million a year.

The federal government—our government—is subsidizing it, under the label of a “temporary emergency facility.”

But this thing is being built to last.

Because cruelty is the point.

And suffering? That’s the message.

And here’s the part that ought to fry every last brain cell in your skull:

Just a few weeks ago, Trump floated the idea of reopening Alcatraz—yes, the Alcatraz—after rewatching The Rock one lazy weekend at Mar-a-Lago.

Imagine that.

He was apparently so jazzed by the idea of locking up his political enemies on an island that he told aides to “get me numbers.”

That fantasy fizzled faster than you can say Sean Connery, once preliminary estimates put the renovations north of $1.2 billion just to make the crumbling site operational.

So what does the MAGA B-team do when Daddy’s dreams start rusting in San Francisco Bay?

Ron DeSantis stepped in with a consolation prize.

Something Trump could still slap his name on.

A swampy sequel with Florida flavor. All the fascist vibes, just more gator.

This is how the right governs now: by fan fiction.

Trump sees a movie.

They write the script.

The rest of us are forced into the cast.

Because for them, the illusion is the point.

Trump doesn’t need the real thing.

He never did.

He just needs a thing. A set. A headline. A stage with villains and monsters and punishment built into the architecture.

And Ron DeSantis gave it to him wrapped in barbed wire, laced with diesel fumes, and stamped with the state seal of Florida.

A made-for-TV hellhole, engineered not to solve a problem, but to perform one.

And the targetted audience?

Cheering.

5,000 People. No Shelter. No Shame.

Keep in mind that it’s hurricane season.

This facility will detain up to 5,000 people at a time in open-air military tents—no proper buildings, no air conditioning, no plumbing, no evacuation protocol.

The nearest hospital is over an hour away.

And in reality, these aren’t hardened criminals.

These are families, children, terrified teenagers, and elderly people who showed up seeking refuge, often from violence our own policies helped create.

They haven’t been tried.

They haven’t been convicted.

But they’ve been sentenced—to heat stroke, mosquito swarms, and the kind of psychological torture that doesn’t leave bruises but breaks spirits.

This isn’t a detention center.

It’s a slow, state-sanctioned rot.

It has the makings of a death camp.

And they’re doing it proudly as people jeer.

A Swamp Full of Ghosts

And there’s a bigger picture that has also been conveniently overlooked.

As if this is surprising in itself.

The Everglades aren’t just swampland.

They’re sacred.

This land—Big Cypress—is the ancestral home of the Miccosukee and Seminole people.

It holds history, ceremony, and memory.

What makes this so gutting is that it’s not new.

Florida has a long, brutal legacy of removing Indigenous people from sacred land under the guise of “security.”

These tribes have been fighting for centuries just to be seen as human beings. And now, the state of Florida is rolling in with tents and temporary fencing, desecrating burial grounds and poisoning ecosystems in the name of deterrence.

They didn’t consult the tribes.

They didn’t file for an environmental impact review.

They didn’t ask.

They took.

Sound familiar?

And let’s be honest: that’s not a new story.

It’s just the latest chapter in the same ugly book.

The Seminole Wars were some of the bloodiest and longest military conflicts in U.S. history—and they were fought to force Native tribes out of the same Everglades we’re now repurposing as a cage.

The irony would be laughable if it weren’t so nauseating.

They called the Seminoles “savages” for defending their land.

Now we drop off brown-skinned asylum seekers in the same marshes and call it policy.

We’ve gone from muskets to FEMA tents, but the mission hasn’t changed:

Displace.

Dehumanize.

Disappear.

And now we’re building new trauma on top of old bones.

Environmental Collapse as Immigration Policy

This isn’t just a moral failure.

It’s an ecological disaster waiting to happen.

The Everglades are one of the most delicate, critically endangered ecosystems in the country.

Water moves slowly here.

What you dump into the soil today won’t be noticed until it poisons a drinking supply six months from now.

This site sits atop the Biscayne Aquifer—source of clean water for millions.

The area is home to endangered wildlife, including the Florida panther and countless rare bird species.

Every diesel generator, every exposed latrine, every plastic food tray that blows into the marsh is another brick in the wall of destruction.

They’ve spent decades and billions trying to repair the damage the sugar industry did to this land.

Now they’re about to undo all of it. For what?

A PR stunt with barbed wire?

No Mercy, by Design

Let’s talk about what it means to live in a tent in Florida in July.

This isn’t metaphor.

This is math.

The average heat index in Big Cypress this time of year is 106°F. The record? 118°F. And that’s without considering humidity that makes it feel like breathing through a wet rag.

There is no shade.

There is no real infrastructure.

There is no plan for imminent storms.

We are putting thousands of people into makeshift tents with no insulation, no escape from the heat, and no emergency shelter if a Category 4 hurricane tears through next month.

They’ll be left to drown.

And one can’t help but wonder if that is actually baked into the plan.

This isn’t just dangerous—it’s purposeful.

It is cruelty as deterrent.

Misery as message.

Don’t come here.

Don’t ask for help.

We won’t feed you lunch.

We’ll make lunch out of you.

Coming here because you can barely keep your head above water?

We’ll pre-sign your death warrant and allow you to drown.

And all of this literally, not figuratively.

Fascist Humor Isn’t Harmless—It’s a Weapon

There’s a reason they laugh first.

Dehumanization needs an invitation.

It needs a soft entry point.

It needs a costume that makes it feel like something other than hate.

That’s where humor comes in.

That’s why the meme matters.

Joking about violence makes people comfortable with the idea before they’re confronted with the reality.

It conditions the audience.

It desensitizes the outrage.

By the time the real violence shows up, the moral reflex is already gone.

That’s what “Alligator Alcatraz” was always about.

It was never just a joke—it was scaffolding.

A punchline that made way for policy.

Because if you can laugh about people being eaten by animals, you’ve already stopped seeing them as human.

A Word for the Christians in the Comment Section

Let’s just say that I’ve never been accused of exercising excessive restraint.

I couldn’t help myself.

I commented on the original post.

To the Bible-thumpers who slap “God is good” stickers on their bumpers while fantasizing about brown people being torn apart by reptiles.

So I wrote:

Lemme guess. Christians, right? Awesome. If God really exists and the Bible is the actual rules, you guys are seriously fucked.
“When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
—Leviticus 19:33–34
“Whoever mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished.”
—Proverbs 17:5
That “no mercy” tagline? That wasn’t just a marketing gimmick. It was a confession.

As of publishing time? Not a single reply.

Either they know I’m right, or they’re fucking cowards.

Or most likely both.

What You Can Do Now

This isn’t just a story. It’s a test. And every one of us has to decide how we answer.

Here’s where to start:

Call your representatives. Tell them you oppose detention camps built on protected land. Demand Congressional oversight.
Support Native groups like the Miccosukee Tribe and their environmental allies. They are on the front lines.
Donate to legal organizations helping asylum seekers survive and fight back. RAICES, the ACLU, and the Florence Project are just a few.
Show up. If you’re in Florida—or can travel—go to the protests. These camps must be visible to be stopped.
Speak. Post. Write. Share. Tell the truth louder than they tell the lie.

Because silence is what cruelty feeds on.

And memes only win when we stop calling them out.

Don’t Look Away

You might be tempted to move on. To close this tab and scroll to something easier.

Don’t.

Don’t let them normalize this.

Because every time we normalize dehumanization, the easier it becomes to justify the unthinkable, excuse the inhumane, and look away while someone else is swallowed whole.

Don’t let the joke become the jail, and the jail become the grave.

We either stood at the edge of the swamp and said nothing while they built a prison on stolen land and filled it with heatstroke and broken spirits—or we flood it with light.

Look it in the face.

Call it what it is.

Call out the Christian hypocrites at their own game.

Expose them for what they are:

Heartless.

Cruel.

Cowardly.

Soulless.

And then apply the pressure that we’ve seen work time and time again in the last six months to make this regime back down.

Because the power they have is imaginary—and they know it.

They only win if we agree to go along with the script.

In the song Hurricane from the musical Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote:

“I wrote my way out… I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance.”

It’s half past too late.

It’s time for us to write ours.

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