Straight outta Dachau: Past lessons and potential futures for ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

*The first detainees arrive by van at Alligator Alcatraz, July 2025. (Image: WINK News)*

*The first detainees arrive by bus at Dachau Concentration Camp, March 1933. (Photo: Bavarian State Archives)*

July 21, 2025 by David Silverberg

“Alligator Alcatraz” is now an established fact in Southwest Florida.

The detention and deportation camp was hastily thrown up in eight days before any opposition could effectively coalesce and blessed by a visit from President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on its opening day, July 1st.

Detainees are being held. Opposition is building.

(Alligator Alcatraz has also attracted other names: Alligator Auschwitz, Gator Gulag, and Gator GITMO, for example. It could also be called the Collier County Concentration Camp. However, this article will use its official designation.)

According to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, speaking at the camp’s opening, the idea for the facility came from her general counsel, James Percival, a Floridian, who called DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier.

As she recounted it, Percival said: “Hey, what do you think about partnering with us on a detention facility that we could put in place that would allow us to bring individuals there?”

*Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier at the site. (Image: AG Office)*

DeSantis and Uthmeier agreed and Alligator Alcatraz was immediately launched.

In its establishment and operations, Alligator Alcatraz bears eerie similarities to the first Nazi concentration camp established in Bavaria, Germany near the town of Dachau (pronounced daa-kau, or ˈdɑːxaʊ/, /-kaʊ/ with a guttural chau in the middle).

The history of Dachau Concentration Camp (its official name) also provides a look into the course of events that Alligator Alcatraz could take.

But Alligator Alcatraz is only 20 days old as of this writing. It may still be stopped or closed.

This essay will look at the lessons of the past, the present dynamics surrounding it and possible futures.

Echoes of the past

Make no mistake: Alligator Alcatraz is a concentration camp. It concentrates people into a single location for detention and processing.

The term “concentration camp” came to be synonymous with murder and extermination after the German camps were liberated by allied forces during World War II. But it didn’t originate with the Nazis and it didn’t initially mean automatic death for those held.

In fact, the term “concentration camp” is British. In 1900, when British forces were locked in a guerrilla war with South African Boers, the British commander, Gen. Herbert Kitchener, conceived of “camps of concentration” for the Boer population. Mostly women and children were herded into these camps to keep them separate and unable to support the guerrillas in the field.

*A British concentration camp during the Boer War. (Photo: UK National Archives)*

While not intended as death camps per se, death was nonetheless the result, with detainees being subject to starvation, disease and abuse. A series of reports and agitation by British activists brought the abuses to light over time. Despite much opposition from politicians who dismissed the reports as what would be called “fake news” today, the population and government in Britain turned against the camps and their abuses and they were ultimately disestablished.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933 they decided to follow the British model and sought new places to hold opponents, dissidents and dissenters. They settled on the town of Dachau in Bavaria for the first of their camps of concentration.

There are striking similarities between the founding, development and expansion of Alligator Alcatraz and Dachau.

Abandoned facilities:

In the words of Uthmeier, Alligator Alcatraz is on the “virtually abandoned” site of a proposed Jetport whose sole runway was designated the Dade County Training and Transition Airport (even though two-thirds of it is in Collier County).

Dachau Concentration Camp was established on the site of an abandoned munitions factory.

Intended for undesirables:

Uthmeier, when announcing the idea of Alligator Alcatraz in a June 19 X posting stated that the camp was intended for “criminal aliens.” On June 30 Noem stated: “Alligator Alcatraz, and other facilities like it, will give us the capability to lock up some of the worst scumbags who entered our country under the previous administration.” In his remarks after touring the facility on July 1, President Donald Trump said it would hold “some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.”

On March 21, 1933, the Nazi newspaper Voelkischer Beobachter announced the opening of the Dachau Concentration Camp, stating: “All Communists and – as far as it is necessary – functionaries of the Reichsbanner [a pro-democracy paramilitary group] and the Social Democrats who endanger the security of the state will be incarcerated here. This is being done because it is impossible in the long run to accommodate these functionaries in the prisons and it constitutes a heavy burden on the state apparatus. It has been proven impossible to leave these people in liberty as they continue to incite and to cause disorder. These measures have to be used in the interest of the state security and without regard for petty considerations.” This later expanded to include Jews, Romany and prisoners, both civilian and military, from every country conquered by the Nazis.

Increasing the initial estimated number of internees:

In his initial X posting, Uthmeier estimated that Alligator Alcatraz “could house as many as a thousand criminal aliens.” That estimate was rapidly increased to 3,000 and then 5,000.

In 1933 the Voelkischer Beobachter announced that the Dachau Concentration Camp would have “a capacity of 5,000 people.” Over time, however, the numbers increased as the Nazis shipped in more people and the camp expanded. Ultimately, one estimate is that 200,000 people were sent to Dachau during its 12 years of operation.

Inspections and subject to law:

On Thursday, July 3, after the first group of detainees arrived at Alligator Alcatraz, five state Democratic lawmakers tried to visit the facility but were turned away, ostensibly on safety grounds. They filed a lawsuit to force entry, arguing that the denial violated state law.

Two days after its opening, state Sens. Shevrin Jones (D-35-Miami Gardens), Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-17-Orlando), Reps. Anna Eskamani (D-42-Orlando), Michele Rayner (D-62-St. Petersburg), and Angie Nixon (D-13-Jacksonville), attempt to gain access to Alligator Alcatraz but are turned away by state authorities. (Photo: Office of Rep. Anna Eskamani)

On Saturday, July 13, state officials allowed a carefully controlled visit by federal and state lawmakers of both parties. Press was excluded, visitors were not allowed to talk to prisoners and phones and cameras were prohibited. As might be expected, reactions were widely at variance, with Democrats like Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-25-Fla.) calling it “really disturbing, vile conditions” and state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-11-Spring Hill) saying that Democratic rhetoric “did not match the reality.” (Ingoglia was subsequently named state Chief Financial Officer by DeSantis.)

At the start of its operations, Dachau Concentration Camp too was subject to Bavarian law and outside inspection.

Initially, Dachau was not advertised as a murder camp and when reports of prisoner deaths began emerging a month after its opening, Bavarian officials investigated.

Josef Hartinger, an investigator from the Bavarian Ministry of Justice, accompanied by medical examiner Moritz Flamm, visited the camp. Hartinger discovered that three Jewish prisoners had been shot, allegedly for attempting to escape but with wounds indicating executions.

In the following months and subsequent visits—and more deaths, including the suicide of a guard—Hartinger built a case against the camp commandant and his staff. He recommended a prosecution and the murders stopped, at least temporarily.

However, when the case was sent for prosecution and trial, higher authorities declined to pursue it. Hartinger was transferred to a provincial position and survived the war, dying in 1984. Flamm, however, was fired and after two attempts on his life, died under suspicious circumstances in a mental institution in 1934.

These were not the only outside inspections of Dachau Concentration Camp. Members of the International Committee of the Red Cross were granted access in 1935 and 1938. They documented the harsh conditions but with a Nazi-sympathetic vice president, the Committee issued a statement after the second inspection that the camp “is a model of its kind in terms of the way it is built and managed.”

Analysis: Possible futures

*Opponents of Alligator Alcatraz protest at the site on June 22. (Photo: Andrea Melendez/WGCU)*

If Alligator Alcatraz follows the same course as Dachau Concentration Camp, in the days ahead it will expand to hold many more detainees, who will arrive in growing numbers, likely well in excess of the 5,000 projected now. Access to the facility for lawmakers, lawyers and outsiders of all sorts will be progressively limited. Conditions will steadily deteriorate for prisoners and abuses will multiply. There will certainly be deaths, whether from neglect, sickness or mistreatment, deliberate or otherwise. No doubt authorities will try to cover these up.

Further, it will serve as a model for similar concentration camps that other states are already considering establishing.

Most of all, Alligator Alcatraz will increasingly become a permanent facility, instead of the “temporary detention facility” Uthmeier initially promoted.

Opponents of Alligator Alcatraz mobilized against the camp immediately after its announcement. On June 22 they protested outside the entrance along Route 41 on environmental grounds, led in part by Betty Osceola, a longstanding environmental activist and member of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, whose sacred lands are close to the camp.

Also lending his voice against the camp is Clyde Butcher, a renowned local photographer specializing in images of the Everglades.

On June 27 the organizations Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit against a variety of federal and state individuals and agencies for violating land use and environmental laws. This has now been joined by the Miccosukee Tribe. Although the lawsuit failed to prevent the opening of the camp, it is nonetheless ongoing in US District Court.

Opposition to the camp is building. No doubt one reason state officials and contractors rushed it to completion in eight days was to outrace expected opposition.

Every day new opponents appear as the magnitude, impact and intent of the facility becomes apparent.

Faith leaders are now joining the chorus of opposition.

Catholic Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami and Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice have both denounced the camp. Rabbi Ammos Chorney of Congregation Beth Tikvah in Naples condemned it in a sermon titled “A Fence Around Compassion” that was subsequently posted online. The Interfaith Alliance of Southwest Florida has denounced it in no uncertain terms.

Op-eds and similar denunciations are mounting and the rest of the world is awakening to what Alligator Alcatraz really means.

The goal of the opposition at the moment is to either shut down and/or roll back the facility. As Wasserman Schultz put it following her visit: “There are really disturbing, vile conditions and this place needs to be shut the hell down.”

What are the prospects for closure or rollback?

The environmental lawsuit

Lawsuits take time and the DeSantis administration will no doubt follow the Trump model of delaying any proceeding on any basis for as long as possible. State Attorney General Uthmeier is in charge of the state’s defense and as the face of Alligator Alcatraz he will no doubt vigorously defend it.

Moreover, given that he has already been held in contempt for defying a judge’s order, there’s no assurance that any court ruling would be obeyed or have any effect. Also, given the backing of Trump and DeSantis, a conservative, majority DeSantis-appointed Florida Supreme Court, and a US Supreme Court majority that seems to actively favor a Trump dictatorship, the prospects for judicial relief are dim.

That said, the lawsuit has merit on the facts and law. But it will take time to adjudicate. Meanwhile, detainees will be subject to camp conditions and will be deported, no doubt with questionable due process.

Forces of nature

On the day it opened a seasonal rainstorm flooded the Alligator Alcatraz reception area, as though a precursor of things to come.

*Water covers the floor of the tent where officials spoke for the opening of Alligator Alcatraz. (Photos: TikTok via AnnaforFlorida)*

*Water on the floor of the detention area of Alligator Alcatraz.*

Alligator Alcatraz opened in the midst of Southwest Florida’s wet season when daily afternoon thunderstorms drench the region. More ominously, it is hurricane season, which runs until Nov. 30.

Supposedly, Alligator Alcatraz is built to withstand a Category 2 hurricane (winds of 96 to 110 miles per hour). At the very least that seems questionable. Moreover, the area is subject to much more powerful hurricanes.

There is a precedent for a severe hurricane wreaking havoc on temporary camps in Florida. On Labor Day 1935 a powerful hurricane, later estimated to be a Category 5, struck three Works Progress Administration camps in the Florida keys housing World War I veterans. Some 259 veterans were killed, part of the 400 to 500 people who lost their lives overall. (An excellent account of this is in the book Storm of the Century by Willie Dye, available at the Collier County Public Library.)

There is the very real possibility that Mother Nature herself could wipe Alligator Alcatraz off the face of the earth. It needs to be noted, though, just how awful this possibility is: it could kill the people at the facility, whether guards or prisoners. There is the horrifying prospect of prisoners handcuffed to their beds being helplessly ripped into the air and flung against debris or into the waters surrounding the camp.

Given personnel and budget cuts to the National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, there is also no guarantee that Alligator Alcatraz administrators would get accurate warnings with time to prepare—or that they would even make adequate preparations if they were warned.

Cost, crime and corruption

Alligator Alcatraz is expected to cost $450 million to run in its first year, which will be reimbursed at least in part by the federal government.

It is increasingly apparent that the initial phase of Alligator Alcatraz was built using sweetheart deals and favored contractors.

As detailed by The Florida Trident investigative news organization, a primary contractor for Alligator Alcatraz is IRG Global Emergency Management, a company only formed in February. It is an offshoot of Access Restoration Services US, Inc., which has been a major campaign donor to DeSantis and won $108 million in state contracts, mostly awarded by the governor’s office.

Indeed, the Florida Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan, unveiled by DeSantis on May 12, outlined a completely separate Florida immigration authority operating independently of the US federal government. The possibilities for corruption were apparent even then. (See “WARNING! Florida immigration enforcement plan raises ethical questions, ties to border ‘czar,’ and for-profit prison corporations.”)

Could the cost of Alligator Alcatraz or potential crimes associated with its building lead to its shutdown?

This is highly unlikely in Florida where the chief law enforcement officer and prosecutor is Attorney General James Uthmeier and the Chief Financial Officer is Blaise Ingoglia.

They and DeSantis are clearly focused on implementing Trump’s anti-foreigner agenda, not enforcing state contracting laws—and especially not when it comes to their pet project. Nor can any relief or resistance be expected from the state legislature, which is out of session and when in session sought to implement Trump’s program more forcefully than the governor. Nor is there likely to be relief from the US Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Floridian who appears to see her primary role as Trump’s personal attorney.

Analysis: Politics and principle

*President Donald Trump speaks at the opening of Alligator Alcatraz. (Image:* *YouTube*)

Despite the obstacles to shutting down or curbing Alligator Alcatraz by the powers that be, one principle seems to stand out:

Alligator Alcatraz will be closed when it becomes more of a political liability than a political asset.

To appreciate this, one must weigh the facility’s role in the Trump anti-migrant agenda and its political usefulness to Trump, DeSantis, Uthmeier and the rest of the regime.

Trump’s anti-migrant crusade is based on his perception, both genuinely held and vigorously propagated, that undocumented migration constitutes an invasion by immigrants who are “poisoning the blood” of America.

As he put it in his remarks at the Alligator Alcatraz unveiling:

“In the four years before I took office, Joe Biden allowed 21 million people, that’s a minimum—I think it was much higher than that—illegal aliens to invade our country. He invaded our country just like a military would invade. It’s tougher because they don’t wear uniforms. You don’t know who they are, more than the populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, and Philadelphia combined. That’s what came into our country. From prisons, from mental institutions, from street gangs, drug dealers. It’s disgusting. This enormous country-destroying invasion has swamped communities nationwide with massive crime, crippling costs, and burdens far beyond what any nation could withstand. No nation could withstand what we did.”

(The figures cited by Trump are erroneous. Credible estimates of undocumented migrants in the United States have never exceeded 12 million. [To the degree that Trump was quoting any kind of source for his figures, he might have transposed the numbers 1 and 2.])

Trump’s rhetoric is strongly reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s attitude toward outsiders and Jews, as expressed in a Jan. 30, 1939 speech:

“For hundreds of years Germany was good enough to receive these elements, although they possessed nothing except infectious political and physical diseases. What they possess today, they have by a very large extent gained at the cost of the less astute German nation by the most reprehensible manipulations.”

So Trump, DeSantis, Uthmeier and Noem see themselves as part of a great crusade against an alien invasion and Alligator Alcatraz is a key asset in combatting it, a means of instilling fear, punishing detainees—all of whom they characterize as “the worst of the worst” —and inducing self-deportation. It is similar to the Nazis’ early efforts to make Germany “Judenfrei,” Jew-free, before they decided on a “Final Solution” to kill them.

On a partisan basis, Trump appears to be seeking to re-engineer American demographics to eliminate Hispanics both as a population and as an element of Democratic Party strength—and Alligator Alcatraz serves that purpose as well.

However, Alligator Alcatraz also serves more parochial, personal political ends for the participants—and provides them the opportunity for a bit of showmanship.

From its first unveiling, Alligator Alcatraz was characterized as political theater.

“What we saw in our inspection today was a political stunt, dangerous and wasteful,” said Rep. Darren Soto (D-9-Fla.) after touring the facility on July 13. “One can’t help but understand and conclude that this is a total cruel political stunt meant to have a spectacle of political theater and it’s wasting taxpayer dollars and putting our ICE agents, our troops and ICE detainees in jeopardy.”

For DeSantis, Alligator Alcatraz is an asset because it’s a way to show the depth of his commitment to Trump’s anti-foreigner agenda and bring himself back into the president’s good graces, which he lost when he ran for president himself in 2023. It is also in keeping with the anti-foreigner agenda that he has been promoting for the past two years of his governorship. As his rhetoric attests, DeSantis is determined to keep Florida in the front ranks of anti-foreigner, anti-migrant sentiment and activism.

Alligator Alcatraz certainly seemed to have played this role on July 1 when Trump visited for the opening.

“Well, I’d like to just thank everybody for the incredible job they’ve done,” Trump said in leading off his remarks. “I love the state. As you know, Ron and I have had a really great relationship for a long time. We had a little off period for a couple of days, but it didn’t last long. It didn’t last long and we have a lot of respect for each other.”

For at least those few minutes the Trump-DeSantis rift seemed healed. Whether the relationship remains so will be seen in the days ahead but Alligator Alcatraz played its role as a political asset for Ron DeSantis on that day.

Trump also showered praise on Uthmeier when he did his shout-outs to local politicians: “I want to thank Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. Where is James? Where is he?” Trump found Uthmeier in the crowd. “You do a very good job. I hear good things. I hear good things about you from Ron, too. No, you really do. He’s even a good-looking guy. That guy’s got a future, huh? Good job, James. I hear you did really, really fantastic. Worked hard. You’re like in the construction business for a few days, right? Huh? Congratulations, uh, for all the hard work and to make this facility possible. It’s amazing.”

So Alligator Alcatraz served as an asset for Uthmeier. It brought him to Trump’s attention and gave him a leading role in the anti-migrant movement. If the anti-migrant base remains cohesive and dominant in Florida, it will be an achievement for Uthmeier that will burnish his future prospects whether political or private. It also enhances his role in Trump’s anti-migrant movement and demonstrates his belief in it, whether his belief is genuine or is just for show.

These are powerful reasons for these people to support, sustain and expand Alligator Alcatraz. Those reasons overshadow all the citizen protests, the environmental damage, the religious condemnation, the public disapproval, the historic precedents and any ethical considerations.

Certainly these people are not moved by the suffering of those being held in the facility whom they, along with Trump, seem to regard as subhuman (or untermenschen, in German parlance). Nor do reports of detentions lacking criminal charges and inclusion of legally documented immigrants appear to make any impression on them.

As with Dachau, reports are already seeping out of abysmal conditions at Alligator Alcatraz. There are accounts of excessive heat, overcrowding, overflowing backed-up toilets, short supplies of drinking water, bug-infested inadequate or substandard food, personal uncleanliness, leaking tents, flooded floors and persistent, pervasive swarms of mosquitoes. Even guards are already quitting or being fired and speaking anonymously to the media about the conditions.

A lawsuit filed on July 16 by detainees, their lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Americans for Immigrant Justice charges that detainees have been denied access to their lawyers.

“The government has banned in-person legal visitation, any confidential phone or video communication, and confidential exchange of written documents,” according to an ACLU statement. “These restrictions violate the First and Fifth Amendment rights of people being detained, as well as the First Amendment rights of legal service organizations and law firms with clients held at the facility.”

While ostensibly for foreign, criminal migrants, US citizens appear to be imprisoned as well. A 15-year old without a criminal record was held there for three days before being released. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-10-Fla.) said that during his tour of the facility one detainee called out: “I’m an American citizen!”

Far from responding to the allegations and complaints, DeSantis, Uthmeier and camp supporters are boasting about the camp and publicly displaying their supposed toughness and ruthlessness, in imitation of Trump’s approach. Meanwhile, vendors are gleefully exploiting the camp, selling Alligator Alcatraz merchandise.

Clearly, these people will not be moved by any appeal to humanity, principle, religion, morality or law. So it is only when they perceive that Alligator Alcatraz is harming their political ambitions more than helping them that they will take any action to either alleviate conditions or close the facility altogether.

What form political harm to them takes remains to be seen. One way might be if Alligator Alcatraz becomes a liability in the midterm elections, presuming that these are free, fair and held as scheduled. But for any kind of effective counterpressure to be applied, opponents must coalesce, unite, focus and act effectively.

Another form of pressure might be economic harm to the state of Florida—and specifically Southwest Florida—if tourists boycott its attractions and other countries impose sanctions based on violations of human rights.

Never again?

*An American soldier feeds inmates following Dachau’s liberation. (Photo:* *US National Guard*)

American troops liberated Dachau on April 29, 1945. What they found horrified and shocked them—and the world. Dachau had gone from a detention camp to a mass extermination camp. Corpses were everywhere. Typhus was rampant. Survivors were starving. One American soldier said that at that moment he knew why he was fighting.

When confronted by the Americans, residents of the city of Dachau responded “Was könnten wir tun (What could we do?)?”

It was a response that didn’t sit well with Army Col. William Quinn, who wrote the official US Army report on the camp’s liberation. However, Quinn noted: “If one is to attempt the tremendous task and accept the terrific responsibility of judging a whole town, assessing it en masse as to the collective guilt or innocence of all of its inhabitants for this most hideous of crimes, one would do well to remember the fearsome shadow that hangs over everyone in a state in which crime has been incorporated and called the government.”

It’s an observation that rings hideously true today. Anyone accepting, countenancing or promoting these kinds facilities becomes complicit in their crimes—and that fact shows why individual acts of protest and opposition are so important.

From the revelations of Dachau and the other Nazi concentration camps the world resolved that the kind of criminality and brutality practiced there should never be repeated. Until now it was a basic tenet of Americanism that there should never be concentration camps on American soil, nor were any ever before proposed.

Since the liberation of the Nazi camps and the defeat of Fascism, the civilized world’s watchwords have been: “Never Again.”

Now, with Alligator Alcatraz, Trump, Noem, DeSantis and Uthmeier are saying: “Again.”

It’s up to the people of the world, and especially the citizens of Florida, to resoundingly reply: “Never!”

Liberty lives in light

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‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is just the start of a state plan to remove immigrants. Will it wreck Florida’s economy?

This article was first published July 1 in The Florida Trident

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis envisions a state run immigration force, complete with its own police force and detention camps, that operates largely outside federal rules. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

By David Silverberg

Mega-farmer Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III addresses the camera as massive watermelons come rolling down a conveyor belt at one of his farms in Collier County. Behind him are workers, all of them Hispanic, rapidly picking up the melons and putting them in large bins.

“We’re loading as quickly as we can,” Oakes explains in a video he uploaded to Facebook on April 28. “We couldn’t do that without the help of this amazing team here.”

He continues his praise of immigrant workers, whom he says are superior to the American labor force that used to work his family’s farms.

*Farmer and MAGA supporter Alfie Oakes extols the virtues of immigrant labor (Facebook/Alfie Oakes)*

“They really do so much more of an amazing job than what we call the ‘domestic’ workers that we used to get 30 years ago when I started in this business,” Oakes says. “That’s why we can grow a 500 or 600-acre field and load 40 or 50 semi loads a day because these guys really know how to get it done. They’re true masters of their trade.”

It might be surprising to hear such pro-immigrant talk from Oakes, who is well-known as an ultra-conservative, pro-Donald Trump activist and local Republican kingpin. Trump, after all, has relentlessly attacked immigrants over the past decade, claiming they come from prisons and insane asylums, and has made deporting them en masse a cornerstone of his second term in the White House.

In the video, Oakes, who owns the Seed to Table supermarket in Naples, seems to be telegraphing a plea to Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to leave his business alone in those deportation efforts. He says all the migrants who work for him are documented, but that hasn’t always been the case – in 2014, more than 100 of his employees were arrested for possessing false immigration papers.

Clearly Trump heard the pleas of farmers like Oakes who rely on immigrant labor, as earlier this month he did an abrupt about-face on his mass deportation plans.

“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” he wrote June 12 on social media.

After so many years of relentless demonization, Trump was suddenly acknowledging that immigrants – including undocumented workers – have economic value in America. Shortly thereafter he announced the deportation effort would be aimed primarily at America’s cities, the “Democrat Power Center,” as he called it.

*Migrants work at one of Oakes’ farms. (Facebook/Alfie Oakes)*

Trump’s admission only echoed what many economists and immigration experts have been saying all along: Migrant labor, rather than hindering the economy, is actually vital to it.

But there’s been no such concession by Gov. Ron DeSantis, and no sign his mission to make Florida the national leader in rounding up immigrants has lost any steam. “We’re leading,” DeSantis said during a May 12 press conference in Tampa. “I think others really need to do more.”

Florida already has the country’s largest number of local agreements to assist federal deportation, according to ICE, and the governor has even bigger plans. At that same presser DeSantis unveiled his “Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan” detailing his administration’s vision of a new state-run immigration enforcement system to “circumvent federal agency bureaucracy” and essentially operate on its own rules.

The 37-page plan paints a vision of immigrant holding camps where thousands of arrested immigrants would be detained in jails as well as tents and other makeshift facilities (“soft-side detention”) that it specifically notes may be built and run by for-profit prison companies. And it’s all part of the state’s effort to assist “President Trump’s fight against the ‘deep state’ within federal agencies,” according to the plan.

And DeSantis, who didn’t respond to an interview request, has a pot of taxpayer money at his disposal for the effort. In February, he signed a bill into law allocating $298 million in state funds toward the effort, with the money going toward the hiring of 50 law enforcement officers and detention facilities, among other things.

*Uthmeier, center, walks the “Alligator Alcatraz” site with state troopers in his X video. (X/Attorney General James Uthmeier)*

A very dramatic early implementation of the plan is so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” — a detention camp of large tents and trailers in a little-used airport facility located in the environmentally protected Everglades of eastern Collier County expected to hold 3,000 immigrants. The prison is estimated to cost some $450 million annually to run, with funding expected from the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

“There’s not much waiting for [immigrant detainees] but alligators and pythons,” said Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier in a June 19 X post. “There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.”

The controversial project is moving at lightning speed. Its opening is expected today, with a visit to the site from Trump to mark the occasion, but a lawsuit filed against DeSantis by environmental groups on Friday aims to block its opening. “This scheme is not only cruel, it threatens the Everglades ecosystem that state and federal taxpayers have spent billions to protect,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, which filed the lawsuit along with the Center for Biological Diversity.

At the same time, the Trump Administration has systematically removed legal status for well over a million formerly documented immigrants – from countries including Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua – that will provide human fodder for camps like “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Humanitarian and environmental concerns aside, multiple economic and immigration experts interviewed by the Florida Trident warn that mass sweeps, detentions, and deportations would do to the state’s economy precisely what Oakes fears it would do to his own massive farm operation.

Bring it to ruin.

The need for immigrants

Michael Collins has spent his life in the hospitality industry, doing everything from making beds to running hotels for Hyatt and Wyndham. He’s also interim director of resort and hospitality management at Florida Gulf Coast University’s Lutgert College of Business – and he told the Trident that a major sweep of immigrants in the state would be financially catastrophic.

“Bottom line, our business could not work at full capacity without foreign workers,” he said. “Next time you’re in a restaurant you might have a two hour wait to be seated, if not for them.”

*The Department of Homeland Security, under Kristi Noem, promoted “Alligator Alcatraz” with this AI-generated image. (X/DHSgov)*

Temporary workers in the hospitality industry are covered under H2B visas for non-agricultural workers, giving them permission to work up to three years in the United States. When it comes to Collier County as an example, Collins has a precise count: 661 H2B workers were admitted to the county for the first half of the federal fiscal year, which began in October. Of those, 85 percent were in the food preparation and serving business, while others worked in hotels, personal healthcare, and spas.

“That’s in one county,” Collins pointed out. “Double it up in Lee, Sarasota, and go to the east coast.”

Florida’s iconic citrus industry provides another example of the state’s reliance on immigrant workers, according to Florida Immigrant Coalition spokesman Thomas Kennedy.

“Florida in the 1990s produced 240 million boxes of oranges each year,” said Kennedy, whose coalition represents 83 groups that advocate for immigrants. “This year it’s 12 million. There are issues of land use, a lot of growers leaving the industry, citrus greening disease, hurricanes, the occasional drought, the willingness to make some money by selling land to developers—that’s all happening. But it’s silly to pretend that there isn’t a labor issue. [The growers] talk about the impact of tariffs but they also talk about it being increasingly difficult to find workers that are economically viable for them.”

He noted Florida’s slowing population growth, with more young people moving out of the state and birth rates in decline. “Legal or not legal, any population boost will be from immigration,” Kennedy said.

The response by state lawmakers to the need for more of these workers has been a flurry of proposals to drop restrictions on child labor and expand the hours that school-enrolled students can work part-time jobs. Even though these measures failed in the legislative session, Kennedy said they reflect the strains of an economy in need of workers.

The DeSantis Administration has “no feasible alternative if they went through with their mass deportation effort,” Kennedy said. “The thing they will never do is admit that they need more immigrants in the state.”

When it comes to the broader agricultural sector, Social Security data shows the stereotypical perception that most of the workforce is undocumented is erroneous, according to Fritz Roka, director of FGCU’s Center for Agribusiness. Most migrant agricultural workers are authorized to come into the United States under the H2A visa program, which produced what Roka calls “a radical shift” in the number of documented workers versus undocumented workers after its launch in 1986 under President Ronald Reagan.

Oakes, the Collier County farmer, made the same point in his video.

“All the workers here are H2A workers that come over here on a work visa from Mexico over here for maybe five months,” he said.

Oakes is especially sensitive to this after 105 of his workers were arrested in a 2014 raid by Florida Division of Insurance Fraud. The workers were charged with multiple crimes, including fraudulent documentation, use of personal identification, identity theft and workers’ compensation fraud.

While most of those charged were released on their own recognizance and given probation, he has said that ever since he’s been compliant with H2A and E-Verify, the federal database that tracks worker legal status.

But in the Trump sweeps, holders of legitimate visas and green cards are not immune from arrest, said Fort Myers immigration attorney Indera DeMine. People are being detained when they report for what were once routine meetings with authorities, or at traffic stops, or for lapsed drivers’ licenses, she said, and then transferred from facility to facility so that family and counsel can’t contact them.

“What will we be left with?”

Evidence of an aggressive targeting of workers in Florida is mounting. In Brevard County, ICE agents have raided construction and landscaping crews, according to Fox 35. In the Florida Keys, a roofing company owner (and Trump supporter) wept on camera during an NBC6-Miami interview after ICE took six of his workers, five of whom he said had valid work permits.

*Attorney DeMine (DeMine Immigration Law Firm)*

Like the Keys roofing company case, DeMine said she’s seen instances where documented immigrants are being targeted.

“What we’re seeing is an out-of-control targeting of immigrants, not just the undocumented,” DeMine related. “We’re certainly seeing an uptick in removals and detentions. … If [her clients] didn’t have a criminal history they would be released on their own recognizance, or given probation. Now there’s less discretion.”

While documented workers aren’t being targeted en masse, the Trump Administration has moved the goalposts in its deportation effort by stripping documented status from more than one million immigrants who previously had legal status. The U.S. Supreme Court in May allowed the administration to move more than half a million immigrants here on humanitarian parole from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua – many of them living in Florida – into the undocumented ranks, making them fair game to be swept up. Just this past Friday, the Trump Administration announced it was stripping temporary protective status for some 500,000 Haitian immigrants, setting them up for round-ups, detention, and deportation back to their home country rife with hunger, crime, and chaos.

*The Trump Administration just paved the way to round up a half million Haitians for deportation. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)*

Combined with the federal effort, DeMine said she finds the prospect of the governor’s immigration enforcement plan – with its vision of mass roundups and camps run by a largely unregulated state force – nothing short of horrifying both in terms of constitutional rights and the state economy.

“It threatens to strip people of their dignity, due process, and protections afforded under the U.S. Constitution,” she said. “It disregards international human rights standards and puts Florida at risk of becoming a state known for hostility and intolerance.

“What will we be left with? … Healthcare, agriculture, landscaping, hospitality and so many other businesses are so reliant on the immigrant workforce and no one in our government seems to be thinking of that.”

About the author: David Silverberg is a veteran reporter who covered Congress, defense, and homeland security during a 30-year journalism career in Washington D.C. As a freelance writer, his work has been published by Mother Jones, Gulfshore Business, and the Naples Press.

Will this coming Saturday, June 14, be a day of glory—or infamy?

In 1991 President George HW Bush takes the salute of Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf and his generals at the Victory Parade in Washington, DC, celebrating the end of the First Iraq War. (Photo: National Archives/Dan Valdez)

June 10, 2025 by David Silverberg

This coming Saturday, June 14, Flag Day, is a day that may either go down as glorious in American history—or live in infamy. The sun may rise over a democracy and set over a dictatorship.

On that day President Donald Trump is scheduled to review a massive military parade in the nation’s capital celebrating his 79th birthday—and the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States Army. Enormous numbers of military vehicles, personnel and lethal weaponry are being shipped into the District of Columbia, ostensibly for the parade.

“No Kings!” counter demonstrations are scheduled throughout the country and in Washington, DC.

*“No Kings” demonstrations planned around the country for Saturday, June 14. (For a fully interactive map see Axios)*

In Southwest Florida the organization FREE (Freedom, Rights, Equality, Enforcement) Indivisible SWFL has called for a demonstration at the Collier County Court Courthouse at 3315 Tamiami Trail East.

California conflict

As this is written the state of California is in an increasingly bitter battle with President Donald Trump and the federal government.

While there has been shooting so far it has remained non-lethal. However, Trump has ordered 700 active duty Marines to California, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is suing the federal government for nationalizing and deploying 2,000 state National Guardsmen—and, potentially, 2,000 more—without his permission.

The situation is changing hourly and passions are rising fueled by extreme rhetoric on Trump’s part, with X postings that threaten violence (“If they spit, we will hit”) denigrate and insult Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and threats to have Newsom arrested.

The militarization of Washington

Amidst the heated atmosphere and the sense of crisis, an enormous amount of military hardware is pouring into Washington, ostensibly for the parade.

Military equipment heading into Washington, DC, as photographed by various observers and shared on social media. (Images: Multiple sources)

In May the US Army announced the specific numbers for the weaponry entering the US capital. These include 28 70-ton M1 Abrams tanks, 28 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, 28 Stryker combat vehicles and Paladin artillery systems, totaling 150 vehicles in all. Some 6,700 soldiers, sailors and aviators will be part of the event, which is expected to be attended by as many as 200,000 spectators. Legacy vehicles like World War II-era Sherman tanks and jeeps will participate. US military personnel in period costumes will accompany 34 horses, two mules and a dog. Steel plates are being laid in the streets to accommodate the weight of the vehicles.

Overhead, current aircraft as well as World War II-era aircraft will fly by along with helicopters of different eras. To accommodate this, flights into Washington Reagan Airport have been suspended.

The event is expected to cost between $45 million and $92 million.

There’s no clear date for when all this hardware will return to base, if at all.

Analysis: To what purpose?

In any other time, under any previous president, in a time of unity and consensus, the American people could believe the stated purposes for this deployment of weaponry and personnel: to celebrate the 250th anniversary of a respected and honored institution like the United States Army.

But in a time of crisis, division and especially with an authoritarian, twice-impeached president who is a convicted felon, who incited a previous violent assault on the legislative branch of government and tried to overturn an election, who lies incessantly and has refused to commit to upholding the US Constitution as his oath of office requires, such assurances cannot be taken at face value.

All those military vehicles in Washington and their firepower can easily be turned to purposes other than parading. (And one vehicle carried a graffito saying “Hang Fauci & Bill Gates,” according to The Washington Post.)

Between the Los Angeles protests and deployments, the extreme rhetoric by the president and the sense of crisis that he is deliberately stoking, the moment is strongly reminiscent of Feb. 27, 1933 when a fire broke out in the German Reichstag building. Adolf Hitler, who had taken office as German chancellor precisely four weeks earlier, and his Nazi party blamed the fire on Communists. In that atmosphere of crisis German President Paul von Hindenburg issued an emergency decree suspending civil liberties. A few weeks later, the Reichstag was convinced to pass an “Enabling Act” that suspended checks and balances and gave Hitler dictatorial power for four years. In fact, it was the end of German democracy and the start of the Nazi dictatorship and Hitler’s unrestricted rule.

Between Trump’s rhetoric, the vocal protests, and the anti-democratic provisions of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” the current moment bears discomforting similarities to the past and to every other dictator who has seized power amidst a manufactured crisis.

In Southwest Florida

The logo of the June 14th “No Kings” demonstration in Naples, Fla. (Art: FREE Indivisible)

There isn’t much that people on the ground in a place like Southwest Florida can do to directly intervene in events in Washington or Los Angeles.

If there is an attempt at a coup d’etat the American people can only rely on the military personnel who serve and protect them to refuse any illegal orders and uphold their oaths of enlistment to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

However, the “No Kings” demonstrations across the country can at least show that the vast majority of Americans are not complicit in any assaults on their democracy and democratic institutions. They can make known that they object to authoritarian actions by this president and his enablers.

In Naples, Fla., these demonstrations have shown that there is a large population of supporters of democracy throughout a region otherwise known for its extreme support of Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again movement. With each demonstration it becomes clear that the population of concerned and outspoken citizens is large and growing.

It’s a dangerous time and it’s not going to get any more peaceful any time soon. At the very least people can raise their voices and refuse to be complicit—especially on this day.

On a personal note:

The most menacing time that I ever saw armed troops in the streets of Washington, DC, was on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001.

The terrorist attacks had occurred that morning.

At the time I was managing editor of The Hill, a weekly newspaper covering Congress and had stayed at my post in a building near the White House, working to get out the next day’s newspaper, which was likely to be the most important one we ever published.

By the late afternoon I had done all I could to finish the newspaper and I left the offices to drive down to our printing plant in Springfield, Va., where the paper would be printed and our staff was gathering. My car was parked in the garage of the Ronald Reagan Building.

The city had been ordered evacuated. Armed police stood at the intersections of streets surrounding the White House, whose perimeter had been expanded several blocks outward and restricted with yellow police tape. The only people on the streets—and there were very few of them—were wearing credentials showing that they were either government staffers, members of the press or were serving in some official capacity.

As I stood on the corner of 14th Street and F Street waiting to cross the road, a convoy of Humvees full of armed and camouflaged soldiers wearing red berets came driving down 14th Street. Even though they didn’t have to, they stopped at a traffic light and were bathed in the warm, golden glow of the lowering sun.

I’d traveled a great deal around the world as a defense reporter and seen militarized capitals. That had never been the case in Washington, DC, which was proud to be an open, free and civil city.

American military parades in the capital had largely been eschewed except for extremely rare occasions like the Iraq War Victory Parade in 1991. On ceremonial occasions like Inauguration Days the military was represented by symbolic contingents of soldiers and never by masses of heavy equipment.

Indeed, when it was suggested to general and later president Dwight Eisenhower that the United States hold military parades like the Soviet Union did in Moscow he is reported by historian Michael Beschloss to have responded: “Absolutely not. We are the pre-eminent power on Earth. For us to try and imitate what the Soviets are doing in Red Square would make us look weak.”

Standing on that street corner on 9/11 and seeing that convoy of soldiers bearing arms in the nation’s capital brought home to me in a way like nothing else that things had changed in America and likely permanently. Of all the sadnesses I felt that day, this was a sadness like nothing else I experienced.

But at least those soldiers were deploying to protect and defend America and Americans.

Let’s all hope that the military parade in Washington, DC on June 14 celebrates the birth of the US Army and salves the ego of the President of the United States—and does nothing more than that.

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

With NOAA and FEMA under siege for hurricane season, SWFL congressmen offer little help

*Southwest Floridians look to the skies as hurricane season 2025 dawns. (Art: AI/MS Co-Pilot)*

June 3, 2025 by David Silverberg

June 4 clarification: An earlier version of this story indicated that former Florida emergency manager Bryan Koon was commenting on Florida’s hurricane preparations. He was not.

As its geographic position on the Gulf of Mexico dictates, Southwest Florida is always potentially in the bullseye for hurricanes and tropical storms.

That makes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) the two most important federal agencies affecting the region. NOAA and its weather prediction offices, including the National Hurricane Center, tells people what’s coming and where it’s likely to happen. FEMA helps with the recovery and clean up.

But this year both agencies have been dealt heavy blows by President Donald Trump and advisor Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

It’s questionable whether these agencies will be able to effectively serve Southwest Florida and the rest of the nation this year or any year in the future. In particular it’s uncertain whether FEMA will even remain in existence. Both have had their funding and personnel severely slashed by DOGE.

Given the importance of these agencies to Southwest Florida, voters might obviously ask what their members of Congress have been doing to protect and ensure that the agencies have the resources to help them when the time comes.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), for his part, said during a press conference at the US Coast Guard Air Station in Clearwater on Wednesday, May 28 that he would personally do “everything I can to make sure” that FEMA is fully funded.

“What’s frustrating is that part of it is funded in advance and part of it is funded afterwards. And sometimes it’s political getting it done afterwards,” he pointed out, referring to the recovery phase. Nonetheless, “I believe it will get funded. I’m going to work hard to make sure that it is.”

Florida’s other senator, Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), merely posted a hurricane checklist on X but has not otherwise weighed in on NOAA, FEMA or the 2025 storm season.

But what about the House members representing the Southwest Florida region? What have they been doing?

Steube and the 17th Congressional District

*A graphic posted by Rep. Greg Steube calling for a name change for the Washington Metro. (Illustration: Office of Rep. Greg Steube)*

On May 29, the eve of hurricane season, Rep. Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) focused his efforts on spectacularly introducing House Resolution (HR) 3660 to re-name the Washington, DC subway system—commonly known as the Metro or Metrorail—to “the Trump Train.”

Steube’s district has no connection whatsoever to the Washington, DC Metrorail—although he himself may take it when in Washington. His district covers Sarasota and Charlotte counties and a sliver of Lee County. Its main cities are Sarasota, Venice and Punta Gorda. In the past, all have been ravaged by hurricanes.

But HR 3660 has nothing to do with hurricanes, response, resilience, the people in Steube’s district or Southwest Florida. It appears to be pure political theater, designed to please Trump.

As part of his bill, he also wants the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which runs the Metro, to change its name to the Washington Metropolitan Authority for Greater Access (WMAGA).

To force WMATA to do this, he proposes withholding all federal funds until the name change is made.

“All Aboard the TRUMP TRAIN!” he posted on X. “WMATA takes $150M a year in federal funds and delivers nothing but delays, dysfunction, and decay. My bill blocks funding until WMATA is renamed WMAGA and the Metrorail becomes the TRUMP TRAIN.”

(In his initial post WMAGA stood for “Make Autorail Great Again.” However, “autorail” refers to an obsolete means of remotely controlling steam engines and also seemed confused with the Amtrak “Autotrain,” which runs between Virginia and Florida. While a reference to ancient steam-powered trains would seem to be in character with MAGA nostalgia for the past, its archaism presumably led him to change the title.)

“But this isn’t just about branding,” he argued in his X posting. “It’s about accountability. WMATA’s reputation has been wrecked after years of mismanagement, breakdowns, and public distrust. Americans have demanded that Congress cut waste and improve efficiency. This bill answers that call.”

That was not the only bill Steube introduced on May 29. He also introduced HR 3659, a bill to “direct Federal departments and agencies to verify eligibility for Federal benefits for individuals 105 years of age or older, and for other purposes.” This is based on allegations—almost entirely refuted—that Social Security and other federal programs pay benefits to ineligible or deceased recipients.

This too had no relationship to hurricane season, preparedness, NOAA or FEMA.

Steube did sponsor one piece of legislation relevant to his district and the hurricane season, the Tax Relief for Victims of Crimes, Scams, and Disasters Act (HR 3469), which he introduced on May 15. As the name states, this allows people who have been victims of scams, robberies, storms and fires in the past year a deduction on the value of their lost items, i.e., they won’t have to pay any tax on them if the bill is signed into law. This same bill was filed in the Senate by Sens. Moody, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.). Steube’s bill was cosponsored by three Democrats and four Republicans, among them Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.).

But otherwise, Steube certainly did nothing to support NOAA, FEMA or prepare for hurricane season. Indeed, on the day hurricane season began, he posted on X: “We in Congress need to pass the DOGE cuts and codify Trump’s [executive orders] immediately. The American people are tired of empty promises. We need to be cutting trillions, not billions, so we can finally put America back on track towards a balanced budget.”

Donalds and the 19th Congressional District

*Reps. Byron Donalds and Jared Moskowitz together during a 2023 field trip. (Photo: Office of Rep. Jared Moskowitz)*

On March 24, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-23-Fla.), whose district covers the Miami area, introduced the FEMA Independence Act (HR 2308).

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), who represents the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island, joined him as Republican cosponsor of the bill, making it bipartisan.

Moskowitz, who was Florida’s director of emergency management from 2019 to 2021, argued that FEMA, which was an independent agency before the creation of DHS in 2003, should be independent again and elevated to Cabinet status.

“By removing FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security and restoring its status as an independent, Cabinet-level agency, my bipartisan bill will help cut red tape, improve government efficiency, and save lives,” Moskowitz argued in a statement.

Donalds agreed: “FEMA has become overly-bureaucratic, overly-politicized, overly-inefficient, and substantial change is needed to best serve the American people,” he stated. “When disaster strikes, quick and effective action must be the standard––not the exception. It is imperative that FEMA is removed from the bureaucratic labyrinth of DHS and instead is designated to report directly to the President of the United States. I am proud to join Congressman Moskowitz in this innovative initiative to ensure the most efficient disaster relief response for the American people.”

So far their bill has been referred to three House committees, where it awaits consideration.

Diaz-Balart and the 26th Congressional District

*Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart surveys the damage from Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas in 2019. (Photo: Office of Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart*)

Although it is inland from both coasts, the 26th Congressional District stretches from Collier County east of Route 75 to the western suburbs of Miami. Chief towns include Immokalee, Doral and Hialeah.

Towns in the district have been hit by hurricanes in the past, most notably Hurricane Andrew in 1992. More recently they felt the effects of Hurricane Irma in 2017.

With the arrival of hurricane season, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart issued guides for hurricane preparation on his website and social media, which are largely standard for members of Congress: they consist of links to relevant sites, lists of items for hurricane kits, exhortations to make plans and protect homes and how to respond when a storm strikes.

However, Diaz-Balart has been notably silent on NOAA and FEMA and has issued no statements or introduced any legislation this year related to hurricane preparedness or resilience.

Analysis: On our own

Both NOAA and FEMA have suffered heavy blows to their capabilities. There have been large-scale staff reductions, research grant cancellations, travel and training restrictions.

Experienced NOAA experts have lost their jobs, field offices are understaffed and much data gathering has been curtailed, for example reducing the number of weather balloon launched to collect atmospheric data. This has reduced the information going into weather models like the kinds that predict hurricane cones.

Still, the National Hurricane Center in Miami says it has been spared personnel cuts and the heads of the NOAA, the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center all assured a reporter from the Associated Press that the agencies are ready for the season.

FEMA, though, has taken the brunt of the beating. It has lost around 2,000 personnel to DOGE cuts. Its continued existence is being called into question by Trump, who leveled false accusations and lies against it during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump’s contempt for the agency is reflected in the new director, David Richardson, a Marine Corps veteran with no emergency management experience, who upon taking office immediately bullied and threatened the staff, warning, “I will run right over you” if they got in his way—but who then also revealed that he was unaware there is a hurricane season.

From its founding during the administration of President Jimmy Carter in 1979, FEMA has had severe ups and downs. Its administrator under President Ronald Reagan was a pistol-packing former US Army colonel named Louis “Jeff” Guiffrida, who ran FEMA much the way Richardson appears intent on running it today. Guiffrida focused mainly on civil defense and what is known as “continuity of government” in the event of a disaster—and the disaster he chiefly had in mind was a nuclear war with the Soviet Union rather than hurricanes, tornadoes or wildfires affecting everyday citizens.

Guiffrida was forced out of the agency in 1985 after a congressional investigation alleged he had misused and mismanaged government funds. After he left FEMA he became a security consultant to perennial presidential candidate and extreme conspiracy theorist, Lyndon LaRouche, which gives some indication of his political leanings.

After a long and painful debate, FEMA became part of DHS in 2003, a move vehemently opposed by John Lee Witt, who had capably served as President Bill Clinton’s FEMA director from 1993 to 2001. However, the argument that FEMA could call on all the resources of the newly created DHS, including such agencies as the US Coast Guard, overrode the skepticism.

FEMA had further ups and downs, failing most spectacularly under director Michael Brown who was blamed for his inability to handle the ravages of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

FEMA’s rebuilding after Katrina was largely due to the work of some notable Floridians who learned lessons from their disaster-prone state. R. David Paulison was the Miami fire chief who took over immediately after Katrina and restored competence and confidence to the agency. He was followed in 2009 by W. Craig Fugate, Florida’s emergency manager and widely regarded as the best professional in the business.

Since then FEMA largely functioned well and responsively—until now. Even if it is split off as a separate Cabinet-level agency as Moskowitz and Donalds propose, that would not necessarily boost its effectiveness given Trump’s disdain and contempt for it and his reflected attitudes in the rest of the regime. What is worse is that Trump appears inclined to use disaster aid as a political weapon and loyalty reward rather than equitably providing assistance to afflicted Americans after a disaster. Any director he appoints will no doubt go along with that program.

The omens for the 2025 hurricane season appear inauspicious given the loss of NOAA predictive capabilities and the extreme disruption and uncertainty afflicting FEMA.

Bryan Koon, a former director of Florida’s emergency management division and a long-time corporate emergency management director, is wary: “Given the reduction in staffing, being unable to do trainings, participate in conferences, there’s potential that the federal government’s ability is diminished,” he observed.

Kevin Guthrie, Florida’s current director of the Division of Emergency Management tried to reassure Floridians that the state can handle any contingencies during a May 30 press conference in Fort Lauderdale. He and Gov. Ron DeSantis are pushing the federal government to make more of its aid available in block grants that states can use at their discretion.

“We are already having these conversations about if the federal government allows us to run an individual assistance program, we’re ready to get that done,” he said. “We believe we can do it just as fast, if not faster than the federal government.”

This hurricane season will put Guthrie’s thesis to the test and demonstrate whether Florida can handle its disasters alone as its officials say it can.

Given Southwest Florida’s vulnerability, it would be comforting if its representatives in Congress joined the effort to protect and fund NOAA and FEMA and looked out for their constituents, who are sitting in the hurricane crosshairs. Instead, judging by their votes for the “Big Beautiful Bill,” they’re committed to slashing budgets and completing the destruction that Elon Musk began, as Steube has stated outright.

Floridians, especially in the Southwest, know the drill when it comes to hurricanes. Have your food, water and batteries ready. Make a plan. Photograph your home’s contents. Experts say that you should be able to survive and hopefully thrive for at least three days, but ideally for seven.

It’s wise advice, especially this year. There’s no telling if anyone will be coming to the rescue when the clouds clear. The folks in charge want you to be on your own—and you are.

Be ready in every way. It’s going to be a very long, dangerous and uncertain hurricane season.

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

WARNING! Florida immigration enforcement plan raises ethical questions, ties to border ‘czar,’ and for-profit prison corporations

*Workers on a Tallahassee construction site are rounded up by ICE and law enforcement officers for screening and detention on Thursday, May 29. (Photo: ICE)*

May 30, 2025 by David Silverberg

A state proposal for widespread, unregulated roundups of foreign-origin aliens may improperly favor a private, for-profit Florida-based security firm with financial ties to Tom Homan, the Trump regime’s “border czar” (more formally, White House Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations).

The proposals are contained in Florida’s Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan (henceforth referred to as “the Plan”), which was unveiled by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on May 12. (The full Plan, with some redaction, is available for viewing and download at the end of this article.)

The “Preliminary Potential Actions” section of the 37-page Plan suggests the most radical actions the state could take.

“In support of President Trump’s fight against the ‘deep state’ within federal agencies, the State of Florida with a waiver of certain federal regulations could circumvent federal agency bureaucracy,” states the Plan, which then goes on to list possible actions.

The Plan aims to deal with the challenges caused by a swift, massive roundup of people of foreign origin suspected of having criminal records, lacking documentation, or having lost temporary protected status to stay in the United States.

Among the actions proposed is waiving “federal detention facility requirements” so that detainees picked up in a massive sweep of Florida migrants, immigrants and foreigners can be housed in non-standard shelters like tents. Currently, federal detainees are held in facilities that meet National Detention Standards (NDS).

The Plan argues that NDS limits the number of facilities where detainees can be held and in Florida some state and county facilities don’t meet NDS standards.

“Waiving select requirements would significantly increase the State’s capacity to detain individuals,” states the Plan. If the standards are suspended, the state would be allowed to hold more people more rapidly and “pave the way to set up soft-side detention as needed and desirable”—i.e., house them in tents.

If the state cannot build out this holding capacity on its own, the Plan envisions turning to private companies to provide additional space. As the Plan puts it, the state could “Utilize existing logistics vendors to establish additional detention space. If the State chooses to forgo the federal detention sites as well as the federal detention standards, logistics vendors are prepared to rapidly deploy detention facilities statewide.”

The ‘vendors’

Florida is currently home to seven privately-run, for-profit prisons, the most of any state.

Three are run by the The GEO Group LLC, headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla. These are the Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Milton, the Moore Haven Correctional Facility in Moore Haven, and the South Bay Correctional Facility in South Bay.

On Tuesday, May 27, The Washington Post reported that Homan had earned consulting fees from The GEO Group in the article, “Trump’s border czar earned consulting fees from immigrant detention firm.”

“Before he joined the administration, border czar Tom Homan earned an undisclosed amount in fees consulting for a division of the Geo Group, one of two companies that operates the vast majority of the nation’s immigrant detention facilities, according to the disclosure, which was released last week,” stated the article, written by reporter Douglas MacMillan and researcher Aaron Schaffer.

It continued: “The filing, which has not been previously reported, did not specify what work Homan performed. The document said Geo paid him more than $5,000 during the two years preceding his government appointment in January. Ethics rules do not require any more specific disclosure, and the amount Homan received could be far higher.”

In response to Washington Post questions, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, told the Post that Homan adhered to “the highest ethical standards” and on taking office had agreed to recuse himself “from any involvement, discussion, input, or decision of any future government contracts that may be awarded.”

(Florida’s other private prisons are the Lake City Correctional Facility in Lake City, run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CoreCivic), based in Brentwood, Tenn. The Management & Training Corporation (MTC), headquartered in Centerville, Utah, runs the other three, which are the Bay Correctional Facility, in Panama City, the Gadsden Correctional Facility in Quincy, and the Graceville Correctional Facility, in Graceville.)

Picking up the pace

The pace of detention, removal and deportation operations is picking up, as confirmed by a statement from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directorate of the Department of Homeland Security on May 29.

At the time ICE announced replacement of two of its top officials in order to “support its increasing operational tempo.”

This could be interpreted to mean that the two officials replaced, Kenneth Genalo, who headed Enforcement and Removal Operations, and Robert Hammer, the head of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations office, were not rounding up enough people fast enough for the administration’s liking.

Confirming the administration’s intentions were Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security advisor, and Homan himself.

Miller, in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, said that “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day.”

Homan confirmed this in several media appearances. “We’ve got to increase these arrests and removals,” he said on Fox’s “America’s Newsroom.”

“The numbers are good, but I’m not satisfied. I haven’t been satisfied all year long,” he said, repeating his displeasure in an appearance on the CBS News show, “The Takeout.”

While 3,000 a day was “attainable” he told CBS, “it’s not good enough.”

The same day the crackdown came to Tallahassee, Fla., when ICE and other law enforcement officers raided a construction site and arrested over 100 workers. According to ICE, some of the detainees had been previously deported or had criminal backgrounds.

Analysis: The Plan and implications

A “tent city” in Maricopa County, Arizona for migrant detainees set up by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in the 1990s. These were dismantled in 2017. Under the Florida Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan, similar camps could be set up in Florida. (Photo: AP/Charlie Reidel)

In Florida, the dry, bureaucratic language of the Plan belies the full magnitude of what it is proposing: a mass roundup of people, based purely on arbitrary quotas, who will then be housed in whatever kind of temporary shelters can be hastily thrown together.

Given the number of detainees envisioned, they would likely be held in holding camps that would be vulnerable to extreme heat, the ravages of hurricanes and other outdoor threats.

As pointed out in an earlier posting, this would be done by the state of Florida outside the constitutionally regulated federal system for immigration enforcement, due process and humane treatment.

Financially, it would all be done at the expense of Florida taxpayers, at a time when the state is seeking savings and is likely to face hurricanes and natural disasters with much diminished federal support.

The beneficiaries of this Plan are privately-held, for-profit incarceration and detention companies, one of which has employed the man overseeing the entire national effort for enforcement, removal and deportation.

The potential for massive corruption, insider dealing and personal enrichment at the cost of human suffering and constitutional illegality should be obvious.

Beyond the corruption aspects, the Florida Plan appears to be proposing crimes against humanity.

Among these crimes, as defined by the internationally recognized Rome Statute, are: deportation or forcible transfer of populations; persecution of “identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender” grounds; and enforced disappearance of persons.

Commentary: Time to act

It needs to be emphasized that, as far as can be publicly discerned, the Plan’s most extreme proposals are exactly that—“preliminary proposals,” so there is still time to stop them before they do any damage.

It’s unclear at this point when the Plan’s proposals would go into effect.

The Florida legislature is expected to reconvene on June 2 to work on a state budget for the next fiscal year.

If the state Plan is to be implemented, money for implementation will need to be included in the budget.

While hearings and committee work occurred in the legislature’s first session, it is not too late for the appropriate bodies to examine this Plan in detail, hold hearings, call witnesses and weigh its full implications.

One would hope that a full examination would lead the legislature to stop any further progress.

The Plan was covered by the media when it was revealed but without a full appreciation and understanding of the magnitude of the “Preliminary Potential Actions.” Given their implications, Florida-based media of all kinds should take a deep dive into these proposals and the Plan in general.

To repeat: This Plan is proposing illegal, unconstitutional and inhumane actions by the state of Florida. It could lead the state to commit crimes against humanity. It will make Florida a pariah state in a country that’s already on a course to isolation and rejection by the rest of the world. It will cause suffering throughout the population, whether documented or not, and it has the potential to penalize the innocent.

If the human and legal arguments are insufficiently moving, its financial implications should give any honest, thinking person pause. It will be extremely costly for the state. It has immense potential for graft, corruption and improper personal enrichment. Economically, it will devastate the workforce, severely impact key industries and drive consumer prices higher.

From a historical perspective it will put Florida on the side of the great crimes and tragedies of history.

In short, it will be an injustice and a stain on the state and nation. By any human and thoughtful standard, it is vastly criminal and just plain wrong.

However, there is still time to prevent it from happening. The “Preliminary Potential Actions” in the Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan are exactly that: “preliminary” and “potential.” They should be publicly and emphatically rejected by the state of Florida, all Floridians and all patriotic Americans.

The world is watching and history will judge.

Click below to view and download the 37-page PDF Florida Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan with redactions.

Florida Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan 5-12-25 Download

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WARNING: Drastic Florida deportation roundup plan envisions ‘circumventing’ humane treatment, federal restraints

Could this be Florida’s future? Deportees from the United States are processed at El Salvador’s CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo) prison in March 2025. (Photo: Office of the President of El Salvador)

May 20, 2025 by David Silverberg

Florida’s “Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan” unveiled by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on May 12 envisions actions that “circumvent” federal regulations and restrictions, including standards and procedures ensuring humane treatment of detainees—and its first use may be against Venezuelans who lost their temporary protected status yesterday, May 19.

The 37-page Plan lays out creation of a state immigration enforcement and detention system separate from the federal one in “support of President Trump’s fight against the ‘deep state’ within federal agencies.”

The “Preliminary Potential Actions” section suggests the most radical actions the state could take. The majority of the Plan is concerned with authorities and areas of responsibility by various state and federal agencies.

Venezuelans who lost their legal status in the United States could be the first aliens to be subject to the Florida plan.

Yesterday the US Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump had the authority to revoke the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of Venezuelans in the United States. TPS allowed Venezuelans fleeing the dictatorial regime of President Nicolas Maduro to legally live and work in the United States for a specified period of time. They are now subject to detention and deportation.

An estimated 900,000 Venezuelans are living in the United States. Of these, an estimated 500,000 are covered by TPS, which was issued twice, in 2021 and 2023. Approximately 350,000, who were granted TPS in the second issuance, are subject to deportation and of these, an estimated 225,000 live in Florida.

If Florida decides to implement its Plan, this population could be the first target, subject to mass roundups and deportations by a state whose officers feel themselves unbound by standards of law, humane treatment or due process.

Key state proposals

Under existing law the federal government and its officers have sole authority for all matters of immigration, naturalization and border security. This is administered through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its enforcement and removal arm, the directorate of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Under the Florida Plan’s recommendations, local police trained under the 287(g) program would become “fully empowered immigration officers,” which the Plan states “would enable the State to bypass the operational bottleneck caused by the limited availability of ICE personnel.”

The 287(g) program trains local police to cooperate and support federal immigration personnel and efforts, but does not supplant them. Under this proposal, state officials, police and local law enforcement officers would be enabled to act with the same powers as federal immigration officers, detaining and ultimately possibly deporting detainees.

To oversee the anti-immigrant effort, the Plan would “Create a command structure led by the state that empowers coordinating officers to act without prior federal authorization.”

In other words, Florida would act independently of the federal government, establishing its own immigration command. It would act independently, taking on a role that was and has been confirmed as federal under the Constitution.

Why would it do this? As the Plan states: “Due to the limitations of the current Federal Executive Order, there has been a lack of leadership coming from the federal government that could be supplemented if the state of Florida were to assume operational control and enabling timely decision-making.”

The Plan proposes waiving “federal detention facility requirements” in order to “expand housing capacity for arrested individuals.”

“One of the stumbling blocks that we perceive exists in the detention section of the overall removal cycle. At present, the Federal government does not possess adequate bedspace capacity for its ambitious, and long overdue, enforcement strategy. While this can be mitigated by better, quicker through-put in physical repatriation—an important factor—it still poses a choke-point to be addressed.”

It continues: “At its current state, ICE is overwhelmed with the number of detainees that have been arrested prior to the state assisting with the process. With the state’s assistance, this number will grow by multitudes, which will likely become unsustainable if ICE were to remain operating at its current state. Many of the individuals arrested by state and local law enforcement will be forced to be released due to the lack of space in ICE detention facilities.”

Under current law and procedure the federal government has standards for housing inmates and detainees to ensure humane, sanitary, and proper treatment and housing. The Plan proposes waiving those requirements to allow holding of inmates under non-standard conditions, presumably substandard ones.

The federal standards are contained in the National Detention Standards (NDS). These are the standards used by ICE. It is against these standards that local jails are judged when it comes to housing federal detainees.

However, the Plan considers NDS too restrictive for what it has in mind.

“The standards are so limiting that many county jails cannot meet the standard even though they are otherwise accredited by the American Correctional Association,” complains the Plan. It finds it “anomalous” that local jails holding American citizens are considered unfit to hold detained aliens.

“This self-limiting proposition works against achieving the President’s goals,” argues the Plan, which also complains that it drives up costs and makes “transportation and logistics more complex and cumbersome.”

To correct this, the Plan suggests that the Department of Homeland Security suspend the standards for the duration of the presidential state of emergency. (Trump declared an emergency on the US southern border on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day he took office.)

As an afterthought, the Plan adds that despite the suspension detainees will still be treated humanely and facilities will try to maintain humane standards.

All of this would be done to rapidly increase capacity. “Waiving select requirements would significantly increase the State’s capacity to detain individuals,” it states. If the standards are suspended, the state would be allowed to hold more people more rapidly under substandard conditions and “pave the way to set up soft-side detention as needed and desirable”—i.e., house them in tents.

If the state cannot build out this holding capacity on its own, it envisions turning to private companies to provide additional space. As the Plan puts it the state could “Utilize existing logistics vendors to establish additional detention space. If the State chooses to forgo the federal detention sites as well as the federal detention standards, logistics vendors are prepared to rapidly deploy detention facilities statewide.”

All of this is intended to hold massive numbers of people swept up in deportation raids, both state and federal.

The only obstacle to implementing the effort envisioned by the Plan is the fact that it may not be reimbursed for the expense by the federal government.

“The federal government has shown itself to be very hesitant to commit to any form of reimbursement to past or future immigration operations,” it complains. “There may come a time when, without federal assistance, a long-term immigration support mission may become fiscally untenable.”

Analysis and commentary: Bad ideas

Make no mistake: This is a plan for a mass roundup of people, using dubious justification, to be housed in questionable circumstances prior to deportation, which may be done by the state of Florida on its own authority. It would “circumvent” or supplant federal authorities, rules and regulations.

With these recommendations the State of Florida is proposing a completely separate state anti-migrant system and command structure without federal oversight, input or approval. Its operations would be conducted by local law enforcement officers who would have the powers of federal immigration officials but without the training, legitimate authority or legal background. Detainees would be housed in facilities and tents unregulated by federal standards of humane treatment including those of nourishment, healthcare and shelter, all of which it views as “bottlenecks” and “chokepoints.”

This would all be done at Florida taxpayers’ expense without any assurance of federal reimbursement or funding. Aside from its legal and humanitarian aspects, it would add an enormous expense to the state budget.

It would also be a gold rush for private for-profit detention companies, which could pursue lucrative, barely monitored contracts no doubt issued with little to no competitive bidding. The potential for graft, corruption and profiteering is enormous.

All this would be done in great haste, “circumventing” all proper procedures for due process, adjudication, regulated law enforcement or oversight.

Why the urgency? Partially because of a flawed, deeply questionable national “emergency,” partially in opposition to a delusional “deep state,” and purely out of what appears to be hatred, prejudice and rage against an alien population, whether legally resident or not. Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem have cited the presence of a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, to justify their targeting of Venezuelans.

But Tren de Aragua is tiny group whose presence is being exaggerated to stereotype an entire population. In a press conference on Monday, May 19, Adelys Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, a non-profit advocacy organization, stated that Tren de Aragua members constituted “just 0.04 percent of our community.”

The Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump regime to revoke TPS for Venezuelans immediately establishes a vulnerable population to be preyed upon by the mechanism envisioned by the Plan.

This is especially relevant to Florida given its large Venezuelan population.

“As a lawyer and as the vice mayor of this city, I will continue to advocate and fight so that our community has access to the resources and information necessary to continue to fight and continue to prepare for what may come from all of this,” said Doral Vice Mayor Maureen Porras (R). Doral, Fla., is home to a Venezuelan population estimated at around 34,000, the largest in the United States.

She also warned, “Currently Venezuela is not in a position to receive its Venezuelans in a safe manner.” (Porras was first profiled by The Paradise Progressive when she ran for state representative in 2020.)

As of this writing, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.), whose district includes Doral, had not issued any statements regarding the loss of TPS on any of his social media accounts, although he has been extremely active in the past in denouncing the Maduro regime.

Right now the most radical elements of the Plan are recommendations only. They can still be stopped by the legislature when it passes its budget for the next fiscal year. People can protest against them, with a reasonable chance of defeating them.

They are evil ideas proposed at an evil time for evil reasons. They’re a form of darkness that should never see the light of day in the Sunshine State.

Florida Immigration Operations Enforcement Plan 5-12-25 Download

Click above to download the 37-page PDF Florida Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan with redactions.

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SWFL congressmen absent from effort to restore FEMA funds

*The United States Capitol. (Photo: Architect of the Capitol)*

April 15, 2025 by David Silverberg

While over 80 senators and congressmen from both parties are urging the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to unfreeze funds already approved by Congress to help communities prepare for natural disasters, Southwest Florida’s congressmen are absent from the effort.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), who is running for governor, Rep. Greg Stuebe (R-17-Fla.), and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.), all of whom represent hurricane-vulnerable districts in Southwest Florida, did not sign the letter, sent on the eve of the 2025 hurricane season.

“We are writing to urge the Administration to reinstate the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Grant (BRIC) program within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),” states the letter. “BRIC funds are spurring communities across the country to strengthen their resilience to extreme weather, and forgoing these critical investments will only make it harder and more expensive for communities to recover from the next storm.”

The letter was dated May 12 and was addressed to Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and David Richardson, the acting administrator of FEMA.

The letter explains: “The BRIC program was established by Congress in the 2018 Disaster Recovery Reform Act and signed into law by President Trump with bipartisan support. In the years since, this program has catalyzed community investments in resilient infrastructure, saving federal funds by investing in community preparedness before a disaster strikes.”

Even if reforms need to be made to the program, the signers wrote, the funds should still be reinstated.

Also absent from the letter were Florida’s two senators, Rick Scott and Ashley Moody.

FEMA canceled approximately $882 million in BRIC funding approved in fiscal years 2020 to 2023, calling it “wasteful and ineffective.”

The letter points out that BRIC funding has helped communities harden their infrastructure and prepare and protect themselves from natural disasters like floods and wildfires.

Florida is facing what is expected to be a very active hurricane season this year.

The full text of the letter and signatures can be read by clicking here.

To see all The Paradise Progressive’s past coverage of Rep. Byron Donalds, click here.

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We’re all ‘the usual suspects’ now

*A depiction of Vichy French gendarmes with “the usual suspects” rounded up in the bazaar, from the movie Casablanca.*

May 2, 2025 by David Silverberg

It’s an iconic scene from an iconic movie.

The 1942 movie Casablanca opens with French Vichy police conducting a criminal investigation. They do this by rounding up people at random, which they call “the usual suspects,” in the city’s bazaar. During the movie, when there’s a particularly serious crime they round up twice the usual number of suspects.

It doesn’t matter who the people are or where they were, they’re all under suspicion.

In contrast, in the United States, an arrest is not supposed to occur until there’s “probable cause” to believe there’s guilt. Once arrested, an accused person is held innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

It’s a bedrock American principle.

But along with other bedrock American principles it’s under attack by President Donald Trump and his regime.

This is happening under the umbrella of Trump’s almost psychotic hatred, prejudice and rage against migrants, immigrants and foreigners, a psychosis that he is injecting into American government at all levels.

Nowhere is this hatred, prejudice and rage being more fully embraced than in Florida.

More than half of the more than 500 local police departments and state agencies that have joined President Donald Trump’s drive for mass deportations are in Florida.

During the past month Florida towns and counties were essentially forced to vote to cooperate with federal authorities’ immigration actions under pressure from the governor and the state’s attorney general. No dissenting votes were permitted, as was amply demonstrated in Fort Myers. Both the president and the governor used threats against what they deemed to be “sanctuary cities,” even though no Florida municipality has officially adopted that position. Florida schools and universities were pressured into joining the program as well.

On April 24, federal authorities, with local help, began rounding up around people in Florida for incarceration and deportation and have now detained an estimated total of 1,100 people. In Miami federal authorities expanded the Krome Detention Center in Miami to accommodate their new holdings. Gov. Ronald DeSantis (R) is even asking the state legislature for money so that he can conduct deportation flights of his own like the ones he ordered in 2023 to Martha’s Vineyard and Washington, DC.

Trump’s stated target are those aliens who have committed criminal offenses while in unauthorized residence in the United States. But it is clear that this effort is going far beyond that, with his consent and encouragement. The setting of quotas for apprehensions and deportations indicates that these actions are not based on evidence and possible individual criminality but on broad, unproven suspicion rooted in, in Trump’s own words, “hatred, prejudice and rage.”

Criminal deportations have been going on for quite some time. For example, President Barack Obama, deported an estimated 5.2 million undocumented aliens, with an emphasis on those with criminal records. But it was done without fanfare or spectacle, a quiet, relentless but also effective drive to weed out criminal migrants while respecting the basic human rights of asylum seekers and immigrants.

The anti-migrant movement is spilling over into an assault on basic rights of all Americans. If allowed to continue, it is going to become far worse. It has the potential to become the greatest tragedy in American history, the end of America’s constitutional republic, the demise of its democratic experiment and the end of American freedom altogether.

Trump’s actions are being billed as an effort to protect the American people—but they are not. In fact, his regime threatens Americans in new and dangerous ways that hark back to the days before American independence.

What’s under attack now is the very bedrock of America, the cornerstones of the American republic, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.

So, what are some of the key bedrock principles in danger? Why is this important? And what can be done about it?

(A note on terminology in this article: This article follows definitions that an “immigrant” is someone who has legally been admitted into a country and all “immigrants” are ipso facto legal. (In other words, technically there is no such thing as an “illegal immigrant.”) A “migrant” is someone who has or is moving. (A useful mnemonic device is to remember that all immigrants are “in,” while all migrants are “moving.”) An “undocumented migrant” is someone who does not have the legal permissions to be present in a country. An “alien” is any foreigner.)

The Blackstone ratio

*The statue of Sir William Blackstone in Washington, DC. (Photo: Creative Commons)*

In Washington, DC, there is a statue of the famous British jurist Sir William Blackstone outside the federal courthouse where so many cases of national importance are tried.

Writing in the 1760s, Blackstone put forward a principle that has been a bedrock of American jurisprudence from the day it was published in his book, Commentaries on the Laws of England.

“…All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously, for the law holds that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”

Ever since the abuses that led to the American revolution, American law has held that an innocent person should never be held, imprisoned or punished for something that he or she did not in fact do.

The entire American judicial and legal system is based on this principle. All the mechanisms of enforcement, investigation, jury and trial are built around ascertaining beyond a reasonable doubt that a person is truly guilty and that not a single innocent person—not just a citizen—is wrongly punished.

The actions being taken by the Trump regime violate this principle. In their pursuit of undocumented migrants they are sweeping up the innocent as well as the presumptively guilty.

This is why the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland has become so important. Garcia is an undocumented citizen of El Salvador who was arrested in the United States on March 12 on suspicion of being a member of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang. He was deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, along with 200 other people seized and deported on suspicion of gang membership. His family denied that he was ever a member of the gang. ICE admitted that his seizure and deportation was the result of an “administrative error.” A federal judge ruled first that he not be deported and then, when he was already in El Salvador, that he be returned. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled that the regime must “facilitate” his return to the United States for a hearing.

To date he has not been returned, even though he had a visit in El Salvador from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

Garcia is no angel. He has a history of past arrests, detentions and allegations of domestic abuse. But in this instance, he was not given a chance to prove that he was innocent of the suspicions—not even crimes, suspicions—leveled against him.

But this regime, in its defiance and indifference to fundamental principles of human rights, is determined to act on its suspicions without proof, in violation of Blackstone’s dictum. In this it shares the attitude of other authoritarian regimes, which hold that punishing those it pursues is more important than protecting the innocent. In places like Maoist China, communists reasoned, “Better to kill a hundred innocent people than let one truly guilty person go free.” In Pol Pot’s Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge held, “better arrest an innocent person than leave a guilty one free.” The Trump regime is now joining the likes of communist China’s Gang of Four and the genocidal regime of Pol Pot in sacrificing presumption of innocence in pursuit of its perceived enemies.

Taking action based on suspicion without protecting the innocent is a fundamental violation of American principles, jurisprudence and basic human decency.

But the means to determine guilt or innocence raises another question of principle.

Due process

*The Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution. (Photo: National Archives)*

An accused person’s right to go through a formal process determining his or her guilt or innocence—what is known as “due process” —is so important, it is enshrined twice in the Constitution of the United States. Nor is it confined just to citizens.

It first appears in the Bill of Rights, Amendment Five:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

It next appears in Amendment Fourteen:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Both Stephen Miller, the White House homeland security advisor, and Tom Homan, head of ICE, have denied that non-US citizens are entitled to due process rights.

On April 1, Miller posted on X: “Friendly reminder: If you illegally invaded our country the only ‘process’ you are entitled to is deportation.” Homan agreed in an April 8 interview with Axios: “People who are enemies of the United States don’t have the same level [of] due process [as in] the normal process.”

Clearly the US Supreme Court did not agree with this interpretation when it unanimously ruled that Garcia had to be returned to the United States for a review of his case.

But however the Garcia case plays out, yet another fundamental American principle is being attacked in the Trump regime’s war against foreigners.

Presumption of innocence

As noted at the beginning of this essay, what’s happening now is reminiscent of the roundup of “the usual suspects” portrayed in Casablanca.

In contrast to roundups like that, in the United States, an arrest is not supposed to occur until there’s “probable cause” to believe there’s guilt. Once arrested, an accused person is held innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Even though it’s a bedrock American principle, surprisingly, it is not spelled out as such in the US Constitution or Bill of Rights. Instead, it has long been derived from the Fifth Amendment’s commitment to due process. It was more explicitly stated in an 1896 Supreme Court case, “Coffin versus the United States,” which held that the US prosecutor had to overcome a “presumption of innocence” to find the defendant guilty.

American law enforcement is not supposed to round up “the usual suspects” as a formal procedure. That sort of thing has indeed happened but it has been considered an anomaly, an aberration and sometimes, a crime.

But presumption of innocence is not being applied for those people being rounded up for incarceration or deportation by this regime. In fact, the opposite is true: they’re being viewed as national enemies and presumed guilty without the chance to prove innocence.

It is true that there are millions of people who are in the United States without authorization. The reason it was tolerated in the past was because their low-cost labor was widely considered valuable to the US economy, particularly in the agricultural sector. There was enforcement at the border but people still entered illegally. Many found jobs, settled down, raised families, started businesses and even paid taxes. In many quarters, especially by business, they were considered important assets in keeping production high and consumer prices low. They didn’t threaten the country, they built it.

Where there was criminality it was dealt with either by the Border Patrol, federal authorities or local law enforcement. Border authorities and law enforcement also combatted drug smuggling and contraband.

It is not widely known but the border was actually sealed, and quite tightly, after 9/11. For undocumented migrants, many of them seasonal workers, this created a dilemma: they could return to their places of origin, mostly Mexico and Latin America, and possibly never return to the United States. Or else, they could stay in place, hope for the best, and possibly attain citizenship through legal means.

Three times there were attempts in Congress to comprehensively deal with these problems and the undocumented population; in 2007, 2014 and in 2024. In all cases the efforts were scuttled by political opposition. In the last instance senators from both parties had worked out a comprehensive bipartisan agreement but Trump deliberately sank it in order to use the issue in his presidential campaign.

Now Trump has flipped the script: undocumented aliens are classified as enemies, even hostile attackers of the United States. From his very first presidential campaign speech in 2015 when he called all Mexicans “criminals” and “rapists” he has utterly ignored the positive contributions of migrants and immigrants and vastly exaggerated their negative aspects.

By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 on March 15, Trump declared the United States in a state of “invasion or predatory incursion” by the Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua. He used this to treat his targets as wartime enemies not subject normal rights and protections.

While enhanced enforcement could be conducted in a legal and constitutional manner, it is clear that the hatred, prejudice and rage with which Trump’s anti-immigrant crusade is being conducted is being applied to all foreigners. It is now lapsing over into attacks on innocent, fully naturalized and even native-born American citizens.

In a comprehensive article on the subject, Pro Publica, an independent, nonprofit, investigative newsroom detailed numerous instances of American citizens being swept up in the crackdown (“Some Americans Have Already Been Caught in Trump’s Immigration Dragnet. More Will Be”).

At risk—and resisting

*Protesters at a May Day rally in Naples, Fla. (Image: Pamela Hostetter)*

In the current atmosphere, any American could become one of the “usual suspects.”

This kind of conduct puts every American citizen at risk. With the erosion and indifference to constitutional rights and protections, we are already in a time when any American can be picked up at any time for any reason, without a warrant or probable cause.

It is exactly the situation the founders sought to avoid by approving the Bill of Rights. It is oppression.

Prominent opposition voices are already speaking out on this.

On Wednesday, May 1, former Vice President Kamala Harris spoke in San Francisco in her first major speech following her presidential campaign.

“Instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals,” she said. Americans were speaking out to say “it is not ok to detain and disappear American citizens or anyone without due process.”

She encouraged people to organize, mobilize and be active. “Please keep doing what you are doing. and to everyone, let’s lock it in.”

But it was a speech by Gov. Jay Robert “JB” Pritzker (D) of Illinois on Sunday, April 27, that most directly proposed action. Speaking at the McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner in Manchester, New Hampshire, Pritzker directly attacked “do-nothing Democrats” and “a culture of timidity.”

But he also directly addressed the attack on the fundamentals.

“It’s wrong to snatch a person off the street and ship them to a foreign gulag with no chance to defend themselves in a court of law,” he insisted, arguing that this was a question that went beyond immigration to the heart of the Constitution. “Standing for the idea that the government doesn’t have the right to kidnap you without due process is arguably the most effective campaign slogan in history,” he said. “Today, it’s an immigrant with a tattoo. Tomorrow, it’s a citizen whose Facebook post annoys Trump.”

His solution? “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now,” he said. “These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They must understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box … and then punish them at the ballot box.”

Stephen Miller, the White House homeland security advisor, said Pritzker’s call to action “could be construed as inciting violence,” to which Pritzker responded by noting Miller’s support of the violent Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol and saying, “It’s terrible hypocrisy on the part of Stephen Miller and of others who have said somehow that my remarks [are anything other than] about peaceful protest.”

In Southwest Florida, people have been mobilizing and protesting in repeated demonstrations against the regime’s actions. Even in Naples, known for its conservative Trumpism, well-attended demonstrations took place on April 5 and 19th (the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord) and again yesterday, Thursday, May 1.

And there was one bit of good news: On the same day that Trump celebrated his 100 days in office and Harris denounced him, in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., ruled that the regime cannot deport Venezuelan migrants under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA).

The Act only applies when there is an “armed organized attack on the United States,” stated Rodriguez.

“The historical record renders clear that the president’s invocation of the AEA… is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms,” the judge wrote. “As a result, the court concludes that as a matter of law, the executive branch cannot rely on the AEA… to detain the named petitioners… or to remove them from the country.”

It was one small push back against the regime’s effort to arrest, detain and deport anyone it wants without due process or probable cause or proof of guilt. It only applies to South Texas. It will no doubt be appealed. It may be ignored. But it also shows that a commitment to the Constitution and the bedrock fundamentals of America is hardly dead.

Clearly, the “usual suspects” aren’t going to go quietly.

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Guest Commentary: America and Vietnam—Trump, tariffs, and the legacy of 1975

Victorious North Vietnamese troops on tanks take up positions outside Independence Palace in Saigon, April 30, 1975, the day the South Vietnamese government surrendered, ending the Vietnam War. (AP Photo/Yves Billy)

April 27, 2025 by Paul Atkinson

As the Trump tariff offensive is unleashed, one of the nations most impacted is the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. A nation of 100 million people, with 60 percent under age 30 crammed into an area the size of New Mexico, it has become one of America’s fastest growing trading partners.

Vietnam’s exports to the United States – electronics and semiconductors, apparel and footwear – totaled 30 percent of its 2024 gross domestic product, and grew at a rate faster than that of any other country. Foreign investors, among them Apple and Nike, have relocated major portions of their operations from China. But as of April 9, those exports were scheduled to be hit with a 46 percent tariff, among the highest applied to any nation.

Beyond just trade, Vietnam sees its relationship with the United States as a potential counterweight to the risk of Chinese dominance in Southeast Asia. In 2023, the Biden administration initialed a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” with Hanoi, one that covered not only economic relations, but included a commitment to “Maintaining Substantive Diplomatic and Political Engagement.”

Vietnam’s To Lam was the first world leader to respond to President Trump. He requested a 45-day delay in implementation of duties and offered to reduce to zero his country’s 9 percent average tariff on U.S. goods. While non-committal, the President described their conversation as “very productive.”

What makes this mercantile brinkmanship ironic is that it unfolds in the shadow of a remarkable historical milestone. April 30 marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of a 30-year struggle to unify Vietnam under Communist rule.

America’s role in support of the non-communist Republic of Vietnam began in the Eisenhower years, following the 1954 defeat and withdrawal of the French colonial administration, and the country’s “temporary” division at the 17th parallel. It officially ended in 1973, when President Richard Nixon removed the remaining US troops based in the South.

Over that span, the costs of the war were enormous. America suffered 58,000 combat deaths and 175,000 wounded and disabled. Total Vietnamese deaths, civilian and military, were in the millions. Two million more, many of Chinese descent, fled the postwar South as refugees, tens of thousands drowning in the South China Sea.

Four U.S. administrations spent $140 billion on the war: $1 trillion in today’s dollars. The protracted conflict upended U.S. politics, compromised America’s role in global finance, and began a debate on the limits of American power that continues to this day.

The circumstances of America’s Vietnam withdrawal are worth recalling. As Richard Nixon confronted his 1972 re-election, he wanted the war-weary electorate focused on his efforts toward detente with Communist China and the Soviet Union. In contrast to public pledges of “peace with honor,” the President and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger recognized that the military outlook was hopeless. “Vietnamization,” the strategy whereby South Vietnam’s army would assume responsibility for the country’s defenses, was not working.

Nixon and Kissinger hoped to orchestrate a “decent interval” between the time American troops pulled out and the North conquered the South. They were, in the words of University of Chicago’s John Mearsheimer, “well aware that they were abandoning the Nguyen Van Thieu government in Saigon when they negotiated the American withdrawal with Hanoi in 1972 and early 1973.” They wanted out of Vietnam “once and for all.”

The abandonment accelerated with the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s August 1974 resignation. That fall Congress cut funding to South Vietnam for the upcoming fiscal year. It is debatable whether the additional spending would have made a difference or just postponed the inevitable. But by April of 1975, the “decent interval” concluded with haunting photos of panicked Saigon residents scrambling to board American helicopters.

Half a century later, America and Vietnam face each other across a very different strategic landscape. Post-Cold War detente with China and Russia has dissolved. Vietnam, while it remains an authoritarian regime, offers Washington a potential strategic partner in its struggle with Beijing for mastery in Asia.

In 1967, on the shores of Hanoi’s Truc Bach Lake, the North Vietnamese erected a monument celebrating the spot where Lt. Commander John McCain was shot down in an American bombing raid. Today, visitors will see a renovated version, representing a symbol of Vietnamese American reconciliation. At Senator McCain’s 2018 death, Hanoi residents held a memorial at the site, leaving flowers to remember the man who was a major figure in establishing U.S. diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995.

America’s first attempt at “Vietnamization” ended in failure. Now, in a remarkable reversal, it confronts a Vietnam fully capable of standing on its own in a US-led Asian coalition. It would be tragic if such an opportunity, the legacy of John McCain and millions of others, were abandoned in favor of taxes on tee shirts, sneakers and iPhones.

Paul Atkinson, a Bonita Springs resident, is a member of the Naples Council on World Affairs and a contributor to The Hill newspaper.

*President Joe Biden visits the John McCain Memorial marker in Hanoi, Vietnam on Monday, September 11, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)*

Liberty lives in light

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The Donalds Dossier: Revelations from a tumultuous town hall meeting

*Rep. Byron Donalds responds to a question at his town hall meeting in Estero on Monday. (Photo: Author)*

April 24, 2025 by David Silverberg

The town hall meeting of Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) held at Estero High School is now in the history books.

This was a lot different from his previous town halls. Not only did it generate a lively turnout, it attracted major media, including CNN, and it was covered extensively by local media, which often give scant coverage to politics. It was raucous and rambunctious and that’s where most of the coverage focused.

But it was a political event a cut above the run of the mill in Southwest Florida and given that Donalds is a declared candidate for governor it provided some indicators of the kind of governor he would be.

So what were the broader implications of the meeting, what deeper lessons can be derived from it, and what did it reveal about the politician, the political dynamic in the district, the state and the nation?

Reading the room

*A view of the audience just prior to the start of the meeting. (Photo: Author)*

After initial indications that the meeting would be highly restricted, when the event occurred it appeared that virtually anyone who wanted to get in could do so. Even with that, the hall was not filled. This author estimates the crowd at 300 to 400.

An indication of the strength of Donalds’ supporters came early when he came out on stage and they gave him a standing ovation. From this author’s vantage, those standing appeared to constitute a quarter of the audience at most.

Questions were written out on cards and the questioners in the audience were named and acknowledged when the questions were asked. This author counted 18 questions being formally asked during the session. Other questions were shouted from the audience, which Donalds occasionally answered as well. Most questions received lengthy answers.

Other than welcoming the audience and thanking the people who arranged the meeting, Donalds did not make any opening statement other than to say he was not going to get into politics (in the sense of purely partisan discussion) and he was not going to address his gubernatorial bid. Instead he opted to go right to the first question. That question, his answer and the audience’s response set the tone and was a precursor of the direction the rest of the meeting would take.

The question was: “As a member of the Oversight Committee, what oversights are you imposing on Elon Musk and DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency]?”

The question brought prolonged, vigorous applause and cheers. “You like that question,” Donalds joked. He answered that Musk was a special White House employee, similar to others that had been appointed by previous administrations. He specifically mentioned President Barack Obama’s appointment of former senator John Kerry as “climate czar” in his administration to deal with climate change issues.

Because DOGE was not run with congressionally appropriated funds, Donalds said, it was outside the House Oversight Committee’s purview.

“What DOGE is doing right now is they’re going through every agency and they’re examining any contracts or any inefficiencies in spending federal dollars,” he said but was interrupted by shouts and expressions of disagreement, with people pointing out DOGE’s mass layoffs and disruption of government operations.

Donalds’ answer and the response began an uproar that never really died down and Donalds never regained full control of the proceedings.

Nonetheless, he compared DOGE’s actions to those taken by President Barack Obama to increase government efficiency. This kicked the uproar into a higher gear and intensity. “You cannot deny that President Obama famously said that he wanted to examine efficiency or lack thereof in the government. Elon Musk is doing the exact same thing,” which elicited even louder expressions of outrage.

“The Oversight Committee is doing the responsible thing, we are letting DOGE complete its work,” he said. “Most of the budget cuts that DOGE will present have to go through the appropriations process. It goes through the Appropriations Committee and most of the judgments of federal spending will occur there and then get an up or down vote in the Appropriations Committee first and then on the floor of the House” before moving to final approval. “That is the process.”

As he was saying this the calls and shouts from the crowd were mounting in volume, complaining that he wasn’t addressing the broader issues created by Musk and DOGE.

But Donalds continued his defense. “Now, it is actually clear that from the President, who is the unitary executive under our system of government…he wants [Musk] to work in the federal government. So, I find it interesting that people who are upset about Elon right now, were not upset, as I brought up earlier, when John Kerry was going around” doing work for the Obama administration as a special employee.

After trying to calm the crowd, Donalds continued. “Here is the last thing. There is a report that comes out every single year. This is the GAO [Government Accountability Office] report. The GAO report, every single year, says the government wastes more than 250 billion dollars a year. 250 billion!” which also elicited shouts of dismissal. “Over the last 20 years the federal government has wasted 3 trillion dollars. (More about GAO and its report below.)

“I believe that it is in the interests of the people of Southwest Florida and of the United States to examine all inefficiencies in the federal government,” which elicited prolonged applause from his supporters. “If there are concerns [it is] that Elon Musk and his team are going through agencies and cancelling contracts that are inefficient”—which brought an outburst of disagreement from the rest of the crowd.

“When appropriations language is ready, under federal law today, Congress has given discretion to the secretaries of the various Cabinet agencies. So what the DOGE is actually doing is that they are working with Cabinet-level secretaries, who have all been confirmed by the United States Senate, to bring their findings to that secretary and then that secretary is the one who is making the decision because the authority has been given to the Cabinet secretary by Congress. You may not like it but that’s the way the law is written.”

After some of the shouting died down from that, he continued: “As a member of Congress, I actually believe that Congress should not give discretion to the federal agencies, no matter who’s president and Congress should actually prescribe how money is spent in the federal government but the Congress has been derelict in its duty and allowed money to go through the federal branch, the executive branch, and they have given full discretion to the executive branch, which goes around Congress and goes around these issues in the United States of America.”

He continued: “This is where there’s a little bit—a little bit—of public perception. If you examine broad-based polling on government efficiencies, it is popular with the American people.”

Then, he asked a question of his own: “For those in the room upset about DOGE; are you going to be upset when DOGE gets to the Department of Defense?” There was a resounding affirmative response. Then he repeated the question and the response rose higher. “Every recommendation that DOGE makes, is approved by the Cabinet-level secretary and confirmed by the United States Senate.”

Then he stated, “At the Oversight Committee we have to actually observe DOGE do its work first and we’re in the process of doing this, number one. Number two, for true accountability if we truly believe it’s necessary true accountability for DOGE will be found in the appropriations process. At that point, any recommendations that DOGE has made, the Cabinet-level secretary will be reflected in budgetary requests and it will get an up or down vote through the appropriations process.”

Answering that question took approximately 7 minutes.

Analysis: Call and response

*Elon Musk wields a chain saw at a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee on Feb. 20, 2025 (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons)*

The entire event took about 90 minutes. It is beyond the scope of this essay to recount every question and answer. (The full meeting can be seen in a 1-hour, 30-minute video on YouTube posted by Forbes magazine. Fair warning: the audio is poor and ads precede the video. Donalds also posted a full video on his Facebook page, also with poor sound.)

All the media coverage of the meeting has focused on its raucousness and the anger of the audience. A major question, though, is: why was it so raucous and why were constituents so angry?

It was not because there was any kind of advance planning or “astroturfing” (paid disruptors) to cause chaos. Rather, as was clear from the very first question and answer there was a yawning reality gulf between Donalds and his audience.

Each appeared to exist in a separate universe and there was little to no connection between them. Donalds’ answers, which uniformly defended President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the regime, also presented a picture that, while presented as factual, was completely at odds with the reality understood and experienced by constituents.

As shown in the first answer, Donalds was putting DOGE in the context of the congressional appropriations process and addressing it as a regular budgetary process. But the audience, like the rest of the American public, is experiencing DOGE as a furious, unchecked, personally-directed purge of the federal government, with massive layoffs, severe cuts to services, disruption of orderly processes, threats to mandated benefits and intrusion into personal information.

Donalds would not acknowledge or address these concerns among his constituents. Instead, he blindly recited the Trumpist catechism and defended the regime’s actions. He did not provide even a hint of sympathy or understanding for constituent concerns. His approach was that if he explained it, or in the phrase he repeatedly used, “if we’re intellectually honest,” it would be sufficient.

He also repeated assertions that were wildly at variance with what the rest of the audience understood to be the truth, prompting amazement and outrage.

(At this point it seems appropriate to address some of the inaccuracies and misconceptions in Donalds’ first answer.

For example, there is no equivalency between previous special presidential employees and Elon Musk. John Kerry was Special Presidential Envoy for Climate of the United States from 2021 to 2024. He represented the United States in climate forums and made recommendations to other government agencies to accommodate climate issues. He did this as a highly qualified former US senator and secretary of state. There were no instant layoffs, agency closings or data intrusions at his command. Elon Musk is a private citizen and profit-driven entrepreneur with no prior government background who has physically wielded a chainsaw to demonstrate his approach to government operations.

The GAO report referenced by Donalds is the annual report on federal programs with fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative goals or actions. As part of its mandate GAO annually suggests hundreds of ways to address problems, reduce costs and boost revenue. It makes suggestions, often of a very technical or financial nature, for achieving those ends. In the 2024 report it made 112 suggestions, recommending for example that “Congress and the Internal Revenue Service should take action to improve sole proprietor tax compliance, which could increase revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars per year,” or saving money by “using predictive models to make investment decisions on deferred maintenance and repair for federal buildings and structures.” It has never recommended—much less imposed—abruptly closing down entire agencies or making mass layoffs. Even so it estimates that its recommendations have saved the US government $667 billion over the past 13 years.

Also, if DOGE and Musk were really just making recommendations to be worked through the appropriations process, all the closings and layoffs would be submitted as recommendations to Congress for consideration during the normal 2025 appropriations process. They would not be implemented until the 2026 fiscal year. They would be examined, debated and then approved by Congress, and conducted in an orderly fashion, not suddenly imposed by executive fiat and lockouts.)

Other assertions that Donalds made during the meeting were:

That the answer to gun violence lies in mental health care rather than any kind of gun restrictions or red flag laws, which he opposes. “It always goes back to the mental health of the shooter,” he said.
That DOGE/Musk access to Social Security information is equivalent to the access allowed to 53 students under President Joe Biden’s administration. (Donalds didn’t elaborate on the source of this information and it is nowhere else on the Internet that this author could discern. It’s not clear whether these alleged 53 students were interns at the Social Security Administration, when, why or where this happened or what they accessed.) As Donalds put it: “It is not intellectually honest to be upset with Elon Musk and not with the 53 students.”
That DOGE/Musk are examining Social Security files to find waste, fraud and abuse and have found 300 alleged recipients over the age of 100. (This claim was debunked by Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner, who said in February that the raw numbers did not reflect actual benefits being paid and that only 89,106 people older than 100 years were listed on Social Security rolls as of December 2024. “The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits.”)
That the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) is unconstitutional and uncontrolled by Congress. “I want to get rid of the CFPB, it is a rogue agency” and “a terrible agency,” he said.
That Trump’s tariffs are “re-setting the balance of global trade.”
That nuclear power should be the future source of energy in Florida rather than solar power, which Donalds said does not produce sufficient energy. Also, he said discarding and recycling solar equipment is ultimately dirtier and more polluting than nuclear power.
That 60 percent of phone calls to the Social Security Administration for assistance are fraudulent.
That the problem with diversity, equity and intrusion (DEI) lies in the equity portion, since life is inherently inequitable and that DEI programs and practices do not level the playing field. “Equity is an impossible standard to achieve,” he said. The only time Donalds became angry and emotional was when he was giving this answer, which he took personally.
That the US Agency for International Development (US AID) was pursuing programs that were not in the American interest and were even treasonous.
That the No Rogue Rulings Act (House Resolution (HR) 1526), which would restrict the ability of federal district judges to issue national injunctions, and passed by the US House on April 10 with Donalds’ vote, would not pass the Senate.
That illegal aliens have more rights and due process entitlements than American citizens. He charged that President Joe Biden abused the asylum process. Donalds said that he supports illegal alien deportations.
That parents and “community members” have a right to inspect school instructional materials, because they make up the bulk of the taxpaying base but that school boards have final say.
That President Donald Trump has pledged not to touch Social Security and it will not be subject to congressional budget reconciliation but that if it becomes insolvent there will be an automatic cut, so it must be reformed.
That he missed votes in Congress because he was campaigning for Trump.
That he does not vote party when in Congress but “I vote the Constitution.”
That Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth did not violate the Espionage Act when he shared classified operational intelligence in Signal chats.

The most dramatic moment in the meeting occurred when a question was asked whether Israel’s cutoff of water and food to the Palestinians of Gaza was a war crime, along with the deaths of 35,000 Gazans.

Donalds answered that the 35,000 casualty figure was from Hamas, that Israel had been careful in its strikes on Gaza, that Hamas was using both Israeli hostages and civilian Gazans as human shields and Israeli forces had warned them before striking.

He said that the United States would have reacted similarly if Mexican drug cartels had taken American hostages in the United States. “On October 7, it was not an Israeli incursion into Gaza, it was Hamas that incurred into Israel,” he said. “We should stand behind Israel 100 percent and make sure the hostages come home. My stance is to stand by our ally.”

This answer prompted an audience member to stand up and loudly protest on behalf of the Palestinians. She continued to do so until a security officer approached her to remove her and she left of her own volition.

*An audience member protests on behalf of Palestinians. (Photo: Author)*

Analysis: Omens and portents

First, credit must be given where credit is due: Byron Donalds did not have to hold this town hall meeting at all.

It was a risky idea from the start and no doubt there were voices in his camp arguing against it. He could have easily let it slide and been none the worse for wear. In fact, the head of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee has recommended that all Republican members of Congress avoid town hall meetings and Donalds could have followed his guidance.

He could have made the meeting a gubernatorial campaign rally but he did not. Nor did the questions seem to be filtered to avoid challenges or controversy.

Beyond subjecting himself to angry constituents, Donalds risked damaging his gubernatorial campaign. Whether the meeting proves detrimental or provides useful publicity remains to be seen but it certainly gave him some local and national headlines.

Contrary to some of those headlines the meeting was not “chaotic” or “in chaos.” Chaos is when punches are thrown, the benches empty and the police charge in with tear gas and tasers. This was certainly rancorous and at times disorderly but it was hardly chaotic. Most people stayed in their seats except when they got up and left, which a significant contingent did early.

But, as stated earlier, what was really in evidence was the vast gulf in the realities between constituents and their congressman.

It was obvious that much of the audience reaction was driven by fear, outrage and worry. The repeated questions about Social Security and DOGE showed key points of concern.

That fear is also fueled by the man in the White House and the tone of hatred, prejudice and rage he exudes to the nation. The day before, those attitudes were on full display in an Easter greeting on the X platform.

*President Donald Trump’s Easter greeting on X.*

It was no wonder that constituents were fearful, angry and loud in their turn.

A more skillful or empathetic politician would have acknowledged the concerns and explained what he or she was doing to allay them or seek solutions. A more accomplished congressman might have told the audience what he or she was doing on their behalf.

But that was not the approach Donalds took. He was there to recite the Trumpist creed, not connect with the audience. For every question about the activities of Trump, Musk or DOGE he responded with Trumpist talking points and standard Make America Great Again fodder that was often at odds with the audience’s general perception of reality. Several times when challenged about Trump or Musk actions Donalds took refuge in a “whataboutism” response: what about John Kerry? What about the alleged 53 students?

In fact, Donalds’ true constituents appeared to be Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They, at least, will likely be pleased with the meeting results.

Donalds did not reveal himself to be a deep or original thinker in this regard.

After the meeting Donalds was interviewed by the media.

“How do you feel about being a congressman tonight?” asked WINK TV reporter Claire Galt.

“Great. Look, this is part of the reason I signed up for the job a couple of years ago. I do think it’s important to bring information to the electorate,” he replied.

“Did it surprise you?”

“No. I don’t get surprised by much anymore,” he smiled. “You know, you just kind of deal with it as it comes. I could tell from the first question or two what kind of night it was going to be. But that’s alright, it’s part of the business.”

It was a mature and professional answer. It’s also one Donalds should get accustomed to giving—because as long as he remains a faithful Trumpist as he pursues the governorship there are going to be many more nights like the one in Estero.