A concentration camp, but with alligators

The rollout of Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” isn't just about implementing a sadistic immigration policy. It's about showing it off

Join us today, Thursday, July 3, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, when we’re joined by journalist Ryan Lizza and Judge J. Michael Luttig. Watch on desktop at The Ink or join us from a phone or tablet with the Substack app.

We talked earlier this week about how the right-wing Supreme Court majority and the Trump regime have created multiple categories of second-class citizenship, opening the door to further large-scale deportations and a more constrained notion of what it means to be an American. But this week, the State of Florida announced a next step: the construction of an isolated detention camp in Ochopee, in the Everglades, with temporary cages and tents meant to hold up to 3,000 people — undocumented immigrants — as they await extrajudicial removal from the United States.

The enduring images of the launch of the facility — Donald Trump (sporting a cap reading “Gulf of America: Yet Another Trump Development”), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem laughing in front of cages meant to hold human beings, along with merch tables and memes — are notable not just because they are likely to live in infamy, but because they underscore the Trump regime’s commitment not just to turning immigration policy into punishment, but to showing off how sadistic they can be while doing it.

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That’s what the philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò calls vice signaling: “demonstrating evidence of bad moral character, by purposely failing to meet the evaluative standards of its audience.”