Trump Visit: AI Photo & ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Controversy

Donald Trump joked detainees at the new Alcatraz facility in the Florida Everglades would have to ‘know how to run away from an alligator’ to escape – as he toured the site on Tuesday

The White House posted a bizarre AI-generated image of Donald Trump posing next to three alligators in ICE hats as the president toured a new migrant detention center surrounded by reptile-filled swamps in the Florida Everglades.

The US President visited the facility, nicknamed ‘Alligator Alcatraz‘, on Tuesday and said it will soon “handle the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet [….] the only way out, really, is deportation.” The Dade-Collier site was once intended to become the world’s largest airport – five times the size of JFK – but was never completed. Now, it’s being transformed into the high-security detention centre expected to hold up to 5,000 migrants. Detainees would have to “know how to run away from an alligator” to escape, the president joked.

Florida’s attorney general James Uthmeier, who first introduced the facility last month, said: “This is an old, virtually abandoned airport facility right in the middle of the Everglades. I call it: Alligator Alcatraz.”

He described it as an “efficient, low-cost opportunity” for a “temporary” detention site. “You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter,” he added. “If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons.”

The White House has delighted in the area’s remoteness – about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Miami – and the fact that it is teeming with pythons and alligators. It hopes to convey a message to detainees and the rest of the world that repercussions will be severe if the immigration laws of the United States are not followed.

Trump meanwhile joked about training migrants to survive escape attempts. “We’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison,” he said.

“Don’t run in a straight line. Run like this,” he added, moving his hand in a zigzag motion. “And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%.”

He also spoke of his plans to expand similar camps to “really, many states,” and even suggested deploying Florida National Guard forces as immigration judges to speed up deportations.

The facility is a symbol of the White House’s determination to deport migrants from America which it says do not have a right to be in the country. But for critics, it’s a dehumanising “theatricalisation of cruelty” that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to run each year.

It’s believed that the facility could house 5,000 detainees, and according to CNN, will cost $450m (£328m) to run annually.