A tale of two piers: FEMA, favors, Kristi and Ian

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, speaks with Mayor Teresa Heitmann of Naples, Florida, and City Manager Gary Young on the city’s damaged historic pier on Aug. 29. (Photo:DHS/Tia Dufour)

Sept. 29, 2025 by David Silverberg

Who would have thought that sleepy, obscure Southwest Florida, including Collier County and the City of Naples, would move to the forefront of national attention under the second administration of President Donald Trump?

First, there was the establishment of the Alligator Alcatraz concentration camp in far eastern Collier County. Implemented by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Alligator Alcatraz has drawn national scrutiny, condemnation, lawsuits and opposition. As intended, it has been a model for a whole gulag archipelago of anti-migrant concentration camps rising throughout the nation. Its fate is uncertain.

But now there’s a new focus: the City of Naples pier, which was destroyed in 2022’s Hurricane Ian.

New developments in the restoration of the Naples pier also serve to highlight the story of the Fort Myers Beach pier—and how each one is being treated illuminates larger trends in America today and the way government now operates.

Kristi Noem and the Naples pier

*The current state of the Naples pier, seen over the shoulder of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during her visit to Naples on Aug. 29. (Photo: Kristi Noem/Instagram)*

For those unfamiliar with it, the City of Naples is an incorporated municipality of roughly 20,000 people. It sits on the Gulf of Mexico at the southwestern tip of Florida and is primarily a tourist and leisure destination. Always a winter haven for the wealthy, its attractiveness to the millionaire—and billionaire—class has grown in recent years.

Among its attractions, Naples has an iconic pier that extends into the Gulf. Originally used for the offloading of supplies when Naples was founded and developed starting in the 1880s, it subsequently became a tourist attraction, a place above the beach to stroll and fish.

*The Naples pier in 2020. (Photo: Author)*

The pier has been destroyed by hurricanes several times, most recently by Hurricane Ian in 2022.

After Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Naples on Aug. 29, she immediately ordered $12 million in federal funds for its rebuilding, granted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that she heads.

It emerges that the grant was the result of city lobbying and the intervention of a major Naples-based Noem donor.

The entire story of the lobbying and Noem’s intervention is presented in an article titled “Kristi Noem Fast-Tracked Millions in Disaster Aid to Florida Tourist Attraction After Campaign Donor Intervened.”

The article was published last Friday, Sept. 26, by the non-profit investigative journalism newsroom, ProPublica, which, as it states, “investigates abuses of power.” ProPublica is known for its meticulous journalism. The article is based on emails and records obtained through public records requests, as well as interviews by its three authors: Pulitzer Prize winner Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski.

The article details how Naples Mayor Theresa Heitmann, frustrated by delays in getting the pier addressed, contacted Naples cardiologist Dr. Sinan Gursoy, who had been a $25,000 donor to Noem when she was governor of South Dakota.

At Gursoy’s urging, “Noem flew to Naples on a government plane to tour the pier herself. She then stayed for the weekend and got dinner with the donor, local cardiologist Sinan Gursoy, at the French restaurant Bleu Provence,” according to the article. Noem stayed the weekend at the Naples Bay Resort & Marina.

She toured the wrecked pier with Heitmann and City Manager Gary Young.

Afterwards she posted on Instagram: “The iconic Naples Pier was destroyed in 2022, and the city is still waiting on answers from FEMA. They couldn’t even get permission to remove the old pier. I saw this failure first-hand today with Mayor Heitmann and Gary Young, and now the project is back on track.

“Americans deserve better than years of red tape and failed disaster responses. Under @POTUS Trump, this incompetency ends.”

It is important to note that the article does not allege any illegalities or criminal activity by any party.

However, it states: “Noem’s actions in Naples suggest the injection of political favoritism into an agency tasked with saving lives and rebuilding communities wiped out by disaster. It also heightens concerns about the discretion Noem has given herself by personally handling all six-figure expenses at the agency, consolidating her power over who wins and loses in the pursuit of federal relief dollars, experts said.”

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told ProPublica that the pier decision “has nothing to do with politics,” since Noem has visited the sites of other disasters. “Your criticizing the Secretary’s visit to the Pier is bizarre as she works to fix this issue for more than 1 million visitors that used to visit the pier,” she said.

*A visualization of the restored Naples pier. (Rendering: City of Naples)*

The Fort Myers Beach pier

Noem’s treatment of Naples can be contrasted with the experience of Fort Myers Beach, just 20 miles northward, whose tourist pier was also wrecked in Hurricane Ian.

Fort Myers Beach, like Naples, is a tourist-oriented, incorporated town on the Gulf of Mexico, although appealing to much smaller and less wealthy population than Naples, both in permanent residents and visitors. Its population is about 5,300 people.

This is the town where Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane and it did horrendous damage, virtually scraping buildings from their foundations all along the sea front and well inland.

The damage included its tourist pier. (Most towns along this stretch of coastline have piers because in their early days they were supplied entirely by boat.)

Like Naples, Fort Myers Beach officials are also trying to rebuild their pier.

Also, like Naples, Fort Myers Beach officials applied for FEMA funding. They were granted funding but only for the pier’s original structure. However, the city wants to expand and lengthen the pier, adding 415 feet so that it extends 1,000 feet into the water. They also want to widen it by four feet so it spans 12 feet.

This is expected to cost the city $17.1 million and the new parts won’t be covered by FEMA. To make up the shortfall, on Sept. 16, the Lee County Commissioners voted to seek $7 million from the Gulf Consortium, which manages compensation for the British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010. That money is provided under the RESTORE (Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities, and Revived Economies) Act of 2012, administered under Florida’s State Expenditure Plan.

“The project is proceeding as planned and designed,” Lee County spokesperson Betsy Clayton told the Fort Myers Beach Observer and Bulletin. “The plan all along was to use FEMA and Tourist Development Tax [funds].”

However, if BP funds are approved, “this would reduce the need for Tourist Development Taxes,” Clayton told the newspaper.

Meanwhile, Fort Myers Beach and Lee County officials can only sit and wait to hear.

*The restored Fort Myers Beach pier as conceived.* *(Rendering: Fort Myers Beach)*

Commentary: Winners and losers

While Fort Myers Beach officials can lobby for their hoped-for BP funds to move the application process along, it seems doubtful that they can arrange a lunch with Kristi Noem and get the full funding over a weekend, as the far richer City of Naples did.

The incident also highlights why allegations of favoritism and political interference are—or should be—a sensitive issue and why inequitable distribution of government funding can be so disruptive.

What is more, both piers are very small disasters for FEMA and Noem amidst a very large array of natural events. As of Saturday, Sept. 27, FEMA was handling 58 major disasters and seven emergency declarations all around the United States and territories.

Complaints about slow responses and bureaucracy have always plagued FEMA.

However, this is nothing new. After every disaster people demand that aid arrive instantly, which, other than help from immediate neighbors, it never does. Government at all levels takes time to work, even when a response is urgent. As for its bureaucratic and procedural slowness, FEMA is bound by laws and regulations and has always had to ensure that money is properly accounted for, monitored and distributed.

But there are new reasons for FEMA delays and bottlenecks, chiefly the result of Trump and Noem’s own actions. FEMA has been battered by layoffs and staff dismissals, cuts to funding and Trump’s repeated attacks on it to the point of calling for its disestablishment.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, FEMA was reformed and streamlined, with two Floridians taking a leading role: R. David Paulison, a former Miami fire chief, and Craig Fugate, who had been Florida’s chief emergency manager. Under their administration and that of other DHS secretaries, FEMA was reworked to provide more timely responses and be completely evenhanded and apolitical in its actions and funding. It also made a major effort to prevent future disasters through preparedness, mitigation and increased resilience.

In the first Trump administration there were fears that Trump was politicizing responses, withholding aid to Democratic states like California and reducing preventive measures that responded to climate change challenges. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint for a future administration, proposed that much more of the fiscal burden for disaster recovery fall on the states. (See “Project 2025 remake of FEMA would hit communities hard after disasters.”)

On the campaign trail Trump repeatedly attacked the agency and its responses, especially in the wake of Hurricane Helene and flooding in North Carolina. Among these he leveled baseless accusations of political favoritism by President Joe Biden.

Once in office Trump has maintained the drumbeat of criticism and repeatedly threatened to eliminate FEMA as an agency. The agency’s layoffs and dismissals have hampered its functioning and ability to respond to disasters.

Noem from the beginning has been an aggressive operative for the Trump agenda, implementing cuts to the FEMA workforce, verbally attacking the agency, as in her Instagram post, and echoing Trump’s lies.

As the ProPublica article pointed out, she has also insisted on personally approving all FEMA expenditures over $100,000, making her personally responsible for them—and since $100,000 is a very small expenditure in government operations, it means she has to be personally involved in every small and petty purchase.

This requirement vastly slows down the process of approving any sort of aid or expenditures—unless a community can short-circuit the entire system by going straight to the Secretary as Naples did. Other communities awaiting assistance and with far greater damage have been left hanging, also hoping for the kind of aid that was previously processed through established, rationally conceived procedures.

It needs to be emphasized, as previously, that there are no allegations of illegality or criminality here and certainly not on the part of Naples City officials. They were confronted with frustrating delays and a lack of response from FEMA. They chose to take action, as should be expected of city officials.

According to the ProPublica article, Mayor Heitmann tried a variety of different avenues to address the issue. The City already employed some expensive Washington consultants to guide the process but this was unproductive. She wrote directly to FEMA, attempted to enlist Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a Naples resident, and finally decided to go directly to Noem through Gursoy, who had introduced Heitmann to Noem at a private party when Noem was governor.

When she contacted Gursoy, he agreed to “get on it.”

It has to be said: It was a good idea that produced results.

Interestingly, nowhere did Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) appear to play a role in any of this even though his district encompasses both towns with their piers and he would logically be the first official to contact in pursuing the city’s interests in Washington.

However, Donalds has been notoriously lax in producing results for his district in Washington, DC and he is currently running for governor, so his attention to the district, already tepid, is now nearly non-existent.

If there is fault to be had it lies with Noem. In pre-Trump days, a secretary of Homeland Security when faced with this kind of request would have declined it. Perhaps he or she would have responded: “Thank you for this kind invitation. Due to the many requests and needs from deserving communities across the country, I have to respectfully decline. However, I will forward your request to the proper offices in FEMA.”

But that kind of rectitude and propriety is a thing of the past.

The bigger issues

Beyond problems created for FEMA aid and distribution caused by Trump, Noem and the Department of Government Efficiency when it was operating, Noem’s personal intervention in the Naples pier project illustrates much broader issues of governance, personalization and inequality among communities.

The United States has been unique in creating “a nation of laws, not men,” as President John Adams put it. Constitutionally, its institutions are intended to function according to law and objective facts, not the personal preferences of any one person.

That is not the case with Donald Trump who is openly and blatantly making governance about himself, whether that applies to prosecuting his perceived enemies, or levying tariffs, or silencing those who satirize him.

As Trump has driven toward a more authoritarian, dictatorial form of government that centers entirely on his personal decisions and predilections, his personalization of government operations is leaching down into lower levels of decisionmaking.

This is glaringly evident in the case of the Naples pier. Noem may say that she’s heroically cutting red tape and taking action—and she may actually think it—but it also sends a signal to all other distressed communities around the country that the way to get disaster aid is not to follow the law and procedure but to somehow reach her personally, with paid travel and a nice dinner (at the least). It announces that emergency management decisionmaking now officially depends on her whims and personal preferences. It also announces that the American people and their communities cannot depend on a government that previously responded to their distress as one of its primary duties.

There has always been an element of personality and lobbying in government operations, whether in the legislative or executive branches. It’s what created the vast lobbying industry that exists today at all levels of government. But lobbying and advocacy was always peripheral to the government’s essential decisionmaking. Now, with Trump’s personalization and weaponization of government, it’s central to it.

In 1655 King Louis XIV of France is reputed to have said, “L’État, c’est moi!”—“I am the state.” It has gone down in history as the ultimate expression of personal power. The American revolution was an explicit rebellion against that philosophy. The state was the Constitution, an expression of “We the people”—all Americans.

As Trump drives toward becoming the embodiment of the American state, situations like Noem’s favoring Naples, or for that matter Tom Homan, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) taking cash for favors and then escaping any kind of law enforcement, are becoming more common.

The Naples pier is just one small example of the increasing personalization of government in America today. It’s also the embodiment of increasing stratification between affluent, well-connected communities and more obscure, modest and poorer communities in getting attention paid to their needs by a government originally formed to be of them, by them and for them.

So, while the focus in this instance may be on two closely-placed towns and their structures of planks and concrete jutting out into the waters of Florida, the gulf between them is actually broader, vaster, more profound—and, unfortunately, growing.

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Breakfast table battle: Brazil and Bolsonaro, America and Trump, and the squeezing of Florida

Sept. 16, 2025 by David Silverberg

Your breakfast table is now a battlefield.

Your morning coffee and your orange juice are the weapons.

Taste them, savor them, pay attention to their flavors and subtleties and enjoy them to the fullest because they’re going to be taxed, perhaps beyond what you’re willing to pay for them in the future. What was once ordinary and routine is about to become rare and precious.

And all this is because President Donald Trump is trying to reverse a just judgment against a coup plotter, insurrectionist and would-be dictator in a land far away.

Last Thursday, Sept. 11, while Americans memorialized the terrorist attacks of 24 years ago, the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court found Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former president, guilty of plotting a military coup to overthrow Brazil’s democratic government.

He was sentenced to 27 years and 3 months in prison. The likelihood is that Bolsonaro will have to serve his time—the Brazilians aren’t kidding around.

Their judgment is informed by a 21-year experience of military dictatorship. They know what it means to be governed autocratically and to lose their freedoms. So when a politician plots to overthrow a democratically-elected government and sends a mob to destroy the legislative branch of government, they know that they have to respond firmly and decisively. The guilty party has to be punished fully because nothing else will preserve the rule of law, the Constitution and democracy.

Bolsonaro closely imitated Donald Trump in numerous ways.

His fate holds important lessons for the United States and for democracies that seek to defend themselves from demagogic authoritarianism. In this affair there are warnings—and especially lessons—for Americans.

As important, all Americans, including those living in Southwest Florida, are going to feel the effects of this battle.

The ‘Tropical Trump’

*Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and US President Donald Trump share a moment in the White House during a meeting on March 19, 2019. (Photo: Isac Nóbrega, Wikimedia Commons)*

Bolsonaro was dubbed the “Tropical Trump,” a politician who took his cues from Donald Trump in both his election campaigns and governing. He was a demagogic, extremist populist campaigner and president who used insults and personal attacks both on the stump and through social media. He dismissed critical press coverage as “fake news.” He promised to “drain the swamp” of Brazilian politics.

Bolsonaro served as president from 2019 to 2023. In contrast to Trump he’d had a lengthy career in electoral politics before assuming the presidency. In 1990 after serving in the military he was elected to the city council of Rio de Janeiro and then to the Chamber of Deputies, the Brazilian House of Representatives. He served there for 27 years and became known for his conservatism. In 2018 he ran for president on a very Trump-like platform and won.

When he took office, Bolsonaro had to immediately deal with an economic crisis, which he did by favoring laissez fare economic solutions. He also rolled back protections for indigenous people and their lands and most notoriously stripped environmental protections from the Amazon rainforest in favor of agribusinesses.

He also advocated removing police restrictions to fight the country’s high crime rate. “A policeman who doesn’t kill isn’t a policeman,” he said while campaigning. In a country that had one of the highest rates of police killings in the world, he wanted greater lethality and defended the use of torture.

Once elected, Brazilian crime rates fell and the economy slowly recovered. But then, like Trump, Bolsonaro was hit with a curve ball: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like Trump, Bolsonaro initially dismissed the disease, calling it “a little flu” and belittling media warnings as “hysteria.”

But as in the United States, COVID struck hard in Brazil. As in the United States voters didn’t forget. And like Trump, Bolsonaro paid the price when those voters went to the polls.

In the United States, Trump lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Unwilling to accept the results, on Jan. 6, 2021Trump incited his followers to attack the United States Capitol, overturn the election and lynch Vice President Mike Pence, when he wouldn’t de-certify the results as Trump wanted. After several hours of inaction by Trump, the insurrection was suppressed by police and National Guard troops.

*Rioters storm the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.*

In Brazil, Bolsonaro lost the 2022 election to the progressive, trade-unionist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, universally known as Lula. Like Trump, Bolsonaro refused to accept the results and on Jan. 8, 2023 a pro-Bolsonaro mob stormed government buildings in the capital, Brasilia, demanding that Lula be deposed and a military coup be staged. Unlike Trump, Bolsonaro wasn’t in the capital—he was in Orlando, Florida, where he’d gone to avoid Lula’s inauguration.

*Rioters storm government buildings in Brasilia on Jan. 8, 2023. (Photo: TVBrasilGov)*

In the United States Trump faced condemnation and impeachment but was not removed from office and did not face any criminal charges or punishment for his role despite a detailed congressional investigation.

In Brazil, however, Bolsonaro was investigated and in November 2024 was indicted for attempting to mount a coup. He was charged in February 2025, placed under house arrest in August for violating court rules and tried in the Supreme Federal Court beginning on Sept. 2.

Last Thursday, Sept. 11, he was found guilty and sentenced to 27 years and 3 months (327 months) in prison.

Protecting the protégé

Having retaken the US presidency, Trump is actively trying to protect his Brazilian protégé using the full resources of the United States.

On July 31, Trump signed an executive order imposing 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian goods and declaring a national emergency regarding the country.

“The Order finds that the Government of Brazil’s politically motivated persecution, intimidation, harassment, censorship, and prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and thousands of his supporters are serious human rights abuses that have undermined the rule of law in Brazil,” it stated.

“By imposing these tariffs to address the Government of Brazil’s reckless actions, President Trump is protecting the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States from a foreign threat,” it stated.

The order declared that Brazilian court orders were tyrannical and arbitrary and charged that Brazil had tried to extort and coerce US companies into censoring free speech. It ordered revocation of the Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Morae’s visa to the United States and any issued to his family.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio added his own imprecations on the day Bolsonaro was found guilty.

“The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil’s supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro,” Rubio stated on X. “The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.”

Of course, Trump is willing to go further. On Wednesday, Sept. 10, the day before Bolsonaro’s verdict and sentencing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that “I can tell you this is a priority for the administration and the president is unafraid to use the economic might, the military might, of the United States to protect free speech around the world.” The comments were taken as a possible military threat against Brazil.

Defiance and costs

*President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and First Lady Rosângela Lula da Silva arrive in Brasilia for his 2023 presidential inauguration. (Photo: Gov. of Brazil)*

Brazilian authorities are defiant in the face of Trump’s threats.

“A president of one country cannot interfere in the sovereign decisions of another country. If he chooses to take further action, that’s his problem. We will respond as measures are taken,” Lula told a local television station.

“Threats like the one made today by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a statement that attacks Brazilian authority and ignores the facts and compelling evidence in the case files, will not intimidate our democracy,” Brazil’s foreign office said on X.

The potential impact of the dispute on US-Brazilian trade could be considerable. Last year trade between the two countries was worth an estimated $127.6 billion, according to the US Trade Representative. What is more, the US runs a surplus, with exports worth $49 billion and imports worth $42.3 billion and until now that surplus was growing. The US exports aircraft parts, refined oil, and gas turbines to Brazil and Brazil exports crude oil, coffee, unfinished iron and beef to the United States.

Analysis: The experience of dictatorship

The Brazilian government’s stance against Bolsonaro’s attempted insurrection and coup is informed by some harsh history in the tropical nation.

On April 1, 1964, Brazil’s top military commanders launched a coup against Brazilian President João Goulart and the parliamentary republic he headed, which they alleged was heading in a communistic direction. They established a military dictatorship that engaged in all the abuses for which dictatorships are known: extrajudicial disappearances, use of torture, media censorship and suspension of due process, among other crimes.

At first tentative, as the years went on the dictatorship became harder, deeper and more intrusive. The Constitution was suspended, Congress and state legislatures were dissolved and the civilian justice system was replaced with a military one that was more repressive, arbitrary and merciless. The dictatorship reached down into everyday life, into the school system, the humanities and the arts.

Brazil’s dictatorship lasted 21 years, until 1985. Despite its early fiscal successes and an economic “Brazilian miracle,” it ultimately collapsed amidst economic stress, inflation and popular demand for a return to democracy. In 1985 an election was held to select a new president. A new, democratic Constitution was approved in 1988.

It is this dictatorship that Brazilians remember as they protect their democratic government and Constitution. They know what dictatorship means in a way that Americans, who have never experienced one, do not. It gives an urgency and determination to their administration of justice and prosecution of Bolsonaro. It also makes it likely that he will actually have to pay the penalty for his duly established crimes.

By contrast, in the United States, Trump was impeached for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection but never removed or criminally prosecuted. Without a historical memory of loss of democracy and freedom, American politicians presumed that after 2021 Trump was neutralized and no further effort was required to defend democracy. Clearly they were wrong.

Now, in addition to assaulting democracy, due process, civilian control and the Constitution, Trump is attempting to undermine democracy in a democratic Brazil and defend a rogue president who assaulted the nation’s fundamental institutions in the same way he himself did in the United States.

The United States has played an intrusive and sometimes contradictory role in Brazil. It supported the coup and its plotters in 1964. Brazilians fought back and at one point the US ambassador was kidnapped by resistance fighters but released unharmed. Then, in the mid-1970s the United States, under President Jimmy Carter, condemned human rights abuses and suspended military aid.

The current situation harkens back to the bad old Cold War days of covert American interference in the sovereign, independent processes of otherwise democratic states. Only now, instead of defending American democracy against communism, Trump’s regime is overtly and blatantly trying to protect a convicted criminal, would-be dictator and, arguably a traitor against the application of justice in his own country—and Trump is no doubt fearful of a similar fate in his own case.

Commentary: The breakfast battle

So why should Americans—and specifically Floridians—care what happens in a land far away?

Actually, everyday Americans will feel the pain of this trade war and pay its price—and they’ll feel it every single morning.

That’s because when it comes to coffee, the United States gets 35 percent of its coffee from Brazil, the largest portion of all the coffee that comes in from Latin America. (Colombia comes in second, with about 27 percent of US coffee imports.)

From the moment that Trump first announced tariffs on coffee in April, exporters and people knew that the cost of coffee was going to rise precipitously.

“If Brazilian coffee suddenly becomes 50% more expensive in the US, roasters will have little choice but to look elsewhere. But none have the scale, pricing consistency, or logistical muscle of Brazil. This could lead to shortages and price hikes, not just in the US, but globally,” warned Sarah Charles, writing for the trade website Coffee Intelligence.

But the impact on coffee is as nothing compared to the impact of Trump’s tariffs on orange juice—because Brazil provides over half of US orange juice.

Trump’s tariff is likely to drive the price of retail orange juice up by double digits. Ironically, this is likely to badly affect the Florida citrus industry, already declining because of citrus greening, migrant worker crackdowns and hurricane damage. Indeed, as Florida production has declined, the middle processing and distribution companies have become more dependent on Brazilian imports.

With all orange juice prices set to rise because of the tariffs and a likely decline in demand as a result, purchase of Florida’s orange products will also fall. The new punitive tariffs will also decrease processing companies’ profits and disrupt the supply chain.

When Trump first announced tariffs in April, Brazilian orange juice was exempted. However, now that he’s specifically targeting Brazil for political reasons, those exemptions are off the table, unless he changes his mind again.

There is a real possibility that the addition of Trump’s trade war on Brazil, coming on top of all its other woes, will bring Florida’s citrus industry to an end.

But for the everyday American, it’s in the two most common breakfast staples that Americans will feel the most immediate pain of Trump’s Brazilian tariff tantrum. After a century of promoting orange juice as a refreshing and healthful way to start the morning, orange juice may be priced out of reach. Those office coffee breaks that everyone took for granted may be a thing of the past, along with the stereotypical office coffee pot sitting on the burner all day reducing the liquid inside to a caffeinated sludge.

Coffee has been a politically-charged beverage throughout American history. In 1773 following the Boston Tea Party and protests against an English tea tax (which was a tariff), Americans switched to coffee in a show of patriotic protest. The change held and Americans have been coffee drinkers ever since.

Now a domineering president has unilaterally put a new tariff on coffee as well as other vital imports in an effort to protect and defend a fellow insurrectionist and would-be dictator against his own people’s justice and democracy.

One of the key complaints against King George III in the Declaration of Independence was that he was “cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world” and imposing taxes without the peoples’ consent.

Perhaps it’s time for another protest against an unfair, unrepresentative and damaging tariff imposed by fiat, for, as the Declaration of Independence put it: “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

Just remember that as you drink your next morning orange juice and down your breakfast cup of coffee.

On a personal note: Doing business with dictators

I first became aware of Brazilian trade issues when I worked as the international trade reporter for the newspaper Defense News.

In that capacity I made the acquaintance of José Luis Whitaker Ribeiro at a trade conference.

Ribiero was chief executive officer of the giant Brazilian firm, Engesa. In the days before e-mail, we would communicate by fax. He was always prompt in responding, was always on the record, never held back, and provided a revealing and often humorously sarcastic insight into his business and his competitors. In other words, a perfect source.

An engineer, he and colleagues had founded Engesa to manufacture oil equipment in 1958. When the United States embargoed military supplies to the Brazilian dictatorship under President Jimmy Carter, Engesa began producing equipment for the Brazilian military.

But Engesa’s biggest boost came in 1979 when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. Engesa became a major supplier to the Iraqi military and its business boomed as it churned out tough, reliable, easily operated military vehicles. It even began developing its own main battle tank, which required a major investment.

The Iran-Iraq War ended in 1988 and Engesa presented Hussein with the bill, which was considerable.

And, as Ribeiro told me, Hussein simply decided not to pay. He just didn’t feel like it. He casually refused to do it. There was no collection agency in the world that could make him.

Engesa’s business collapsed. It would never recoup its investments. It wouldn’t be paid the billions it was owed. In 1993 it declared bankruptcy.

That experience provides yet another insight into the nature of dictatorships, wherever they’re located. No matter how much contractors, corporations and related parasites may believe they’re going to profit from a dictatorship, there’s a lesson to be learned.

That lesson: Dictators don’t pay their bills.

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Driving the wedge: Florida’s anti-vaxx mandate ban is giant opportunity for Democrats – Updated

*Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announces that Florida will be the first state in the nation to abolish all vaccine mandates. (Image: YouTube/News4JAX)*

Sept. 8, 2025 by David Silverberg

Updated 10:30 am with Joseph Ladapo comments to CNN and David Jolly statement.

The decision announced on Wednesday, Sept. 3, by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo to end all vaccination mandates in Florida hands Democratic candidates an enormous opportunity in next year’s elections.

It’s a classic wedge issue, one liable to split the opposition party.

While memories of dangers and uncertainty from a deadly pandemic are still fresh, DeSantis and Ladapo deliberately introduced a new vulnerability that hits every single Florida home.

By banning all vaccination mandates they’re threatening every child going to school in the state—every single one. They’re alarming parents. They’re menacing seniors. They’re defying science. They’re outraging doctors. They’re hurting the economy. They’re also risking Florida’s tourism and hospitality industry, which is already reeling from President Donald Trump’s international bullying, insults and tariffs.

It’s a situation that’s damaging, unsustainable and needs to be corrected at the polls—but they’ve provided the means to do that.

The announcement

The announcement was delivered by Ladapo at Grace Christian School in Valrico, Florida near Brandon, before an enthusiastically supportive audience. Also speaking at the event were DeSantis, first lady Casey DeSantis, Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas.

Ladapo was impassioned, insistent and fervent in his six-minute address. He built his case against vaccine mandates on moral and ethical grounds.

He was emphatic that the decision applied to every mandate, every requirement that schoolchildren be vaccinated, and repeated the phrase “all of them” four times and “every last one of them” three times.

“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and, and, slavery, okay?” he said, emotionally. “Who am I as a government or anyone else? Or who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body?”

He continued: “I don’t have that right. Your body, your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body, what you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God. I don’t have that right. Government does not have that right.”

While states had convinced people that they had the right to mandate vaccines, they do not, he said. “They do not have the right. Do not give it to them. Take it away from them. And we’re going to be starting that here in Florida.”

People should make their own decisions, he argued. “You don’t want to put whatever vaccines in your body, God bless you and I hope you make an informed decision. And that’s how it should be. That is, that is a moral ethical universe, not this nonsense where people who don’t know you are telling you what to put in your temple, the temple of your body. That is a gift from God. They don’t have that right.”

He thanked Florida lawmakers for supporting this position. He also noted that people regretted having taken the COVID-19 vaccine and wished they could undo it. Moreover, “…if we want to move toward a perfect world, a better world, you can’t do it by enslaving people in terrible philosophies and taking away people’s freedoms.”

Then he reiterated that all vaccine mandates in Florida “are going to be gone for sure” and said that DeSantis and the legislature would “get rid of the rest of it.”

“We need to end it,” he stated emphatically. “It’s the right thing to do and it’ll be wonderful for Florida to be the first state to do it.”

(A link to the full video is at the end of this article.)

In a CNN interview on Sunday morning, Sept. 7, Ladapo admitted that there had been no data review or research prior to his call for ending mandates.

“Absolutely not,” Ladapo told Jake Tapper, when asked if there had been any research done. “ … There’s this conflation of the science and, sort of, what is the right and wrong thing to do.”

He continued: “This is an issue, very clearly, of parents’ rights. So, do I need to analyze whether it’s appropriate for parents to be able to decide what’s appropriate to go into their child’s bodies? I don’t need to do an analysis on that,” Ladapo said.

*Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis takes the stage after Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo to address the crowd at Grace Christian School.* *(Image: YouTube/News4JAX)*

The political reaction

Republican politicians were split. Those who didn’t enthusiastically endorse the ban expressed their reservations with faint praise and a lack of enthusiasm, although none condemned it outright.

On the non-committal side, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), long an antagonist of DeSantis, told Marc Caputo of the news site Axios that “Florida already has a good system that allows families to opt out based on religious and personal beliefs, which balances our children’s health and parents’ rights.”

Another Republican, state Sen. Don Gaetz (R-1-Pensacola) was tepid: “If the surgeon general has valid and reliable evidence challenging the efficacy of certain vaccinations then of course I am open to his proposal,” Gaetz said in a statement to the Florida Phoenix. “As a layman, I also hope to hear from medical authorities.”

In contrast, Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), was enthusiastic, telling the conservative cable channel Newsmax: “They don’t call us the free state of Florida for nothing. One of the things I think stood out about our state during the last years, especially when we were dealing with [COVID-19], was that we pushed back and made sure that we were giving reasoned analysis throughout that time period and making sure that people knew we as state leaders understood our limits, that we respected individuals’ rights,” she said.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), who is running for governor with Trump’s endorsement, was immediately enthusiastic about ending the mandates. Throughout the COVID pandemic, he was an opponent of masking, social distancing and vaccine mandates. (Of note: Donalds himself contracted COVID and had to quarantine.)

“I believe parents should be empowered to make vaccination decisions for their children,” he posted on X, immediately after the announcement. Of course, he effusively praised Trump: “President Trump has done a great job bringing the MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] conversation forward.”

He also made sure to praise Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. prior to his Senate testimony: “[Secretary Kennedy] is doing a great job. He is dismantling bureaucracy. He is eliminating corruption. He is Making America Healthy Again. We are undergoing a health revolution thanks to his leadership & I wish him all the best tomorrow in [the Senate Finance Committee].”

His primary opponent for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, Paul Renner, former Speaker of the Florida House, fell into the non-committal category: “As Speaker, I opposed mandatory COVID vaccines and supported strong parental rights legislation. Parents should not be forced to have their children take a vaccine that they think is unsafe. However, we should have safe and effective vaccines that save lives.”

In stark contrast to the Republicans, Democrats were immediate and outspoken in their condemnation of banning mandates.

“The DeSantis Administration’s decision to end vaccine requirements will result in the deaths of thousands of Floridians,” Democratic Party Chair Nichole (Nikki) Fried declared in a statement. “Today’s announcement is yet another morally bankrupt play that will make our communities less safe, all while Republicans are kicking 2 million Floridians off their healthcare.”

Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-24-Fla.) called for Ladapo’s firing: “Are we losing our minds? This is getting ridiculous and pathetic. Are we trying to kill millions of innocent children? Childhood vaccines save lives. Abolishing them is insanity.”

In a Tallahassee press conference Democratic state senators blasted the ban.

Sen. Lori Berman (D-26-Boynton Beach), the Democratic Senate leader, call the ban “ridiculous” and “dangerous, anti-science, and anti-child,” adding, “Nobody wants to go back to the days of iron lungs.”

Sen. Tina Polsky (D-30-Boca Raton) noted her 2023 opposition to confirming Ladapo and said “He remains determined to prioritize political dogma over smart health decisions.”

Sen. Shevrin Jones (D-34-Miami Gardens) called the move “reckless” and accused the DeSantis administration of “actively undermining public health.”

David Jolly, the Democratic candidate for governor, called for Ladapo’s firing.

“Our surgeon general should be fired—today,” Jolly said in a 1-minute, 21-second video posted on X. “The good news is that Florida’s next governor gets to do that and I will do that on my very first day in office.” He called on the governor and legislature to stop the plan to lift the mandates and on his Republican opponents to condemn it as well and support vaccines.

He warned that parents are thinking of keeping their children home from school for fear of infection.

He also warned that “we have a raw ignorance infecting our politics today. It is time to embrace science and health and yes, vaccines.”

*Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly. (Image: Campaign)*

Analysis: Wielding the wedge

The big bet that DeSantis and Ladapo have made is that more Floridians will favor lifting mandates than maintaining them.

In this they listened to the extreme anti-vaxxers in Florida and in the Trump regime, most notably Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Both DeSantis and Ladapo have long been anti-vaxxers, as evidenced during the COVID pandemic. They opposed public health measures at the time and moved to abolish other health mandates. (It merits noting that DeSantis privately received the vaccine and disappeared from the public for two weeks in 2022 when he was rumored to have caught COVID.)

Given Kennedy’s all-out assault on vaccines and the scientific institutions that evaluate and administer them, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, DeSantis and Ladapo no doubt believed they were currying favor with Trump himself.

Moreover, they were carrying forward the COVID-era anti-vaccine movement. Certainly that anti-scientific sentiment was in evidence from their immediate audience at the Grace Christian School, which cheered and applauded. In their bubble they no doubt expect overwhelming support and agreement and they may think that this base can swing the 2026 election in their preferred direction.

But just as the medical data doesn’t support the assault on vaccines, so the polling data doesn’t support the opposition to them.

In a bit of remarkable timing, the KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation) and the Washington Post newspaper conducted a survey of Floridians’ attitudes toward vaccines in July and August.

The survey found that 82 percent of the Floridians in the sample (of 2,716 people nationwide) favored requiring vaccines for measles and polio (while allowing some health and religious exemptions), with only 17 percent of respondents opposing them.

This tracked with the national results, which found that 81 percent of all respondents favored school vaccine mandates and only 18 percent opposed them. (One percent of the respondents skipped the question.)

*Results of a KFF-Washington Post poll on attitudes toward vaccine mandates. (Chart: KFF, Washington Post)*

These results indicate that Floridians as a whole are unlikely to favor the DeSantis/Ladapo vaccine mandate ban as its full consequences sink in.

In fact, it appears that DeSantis and Ladapo have handed the Democrats a precious wedge issue, one so emotionally fraught and divisive that it could split Republican voters to break for sensible, science-based Democratic candidates who care about their survival and that of their children. After all, this is a matter of life and death—and Florida has been through it before.

Democratic messaging should emphasize the threat that DeSantis and Ladapo have posed to Floridians’ kids, themselves and the state and it should be pounded home again and again and again, in every speech, statement and advertisement.

It’s as though DeSantis and Ladapo have put an iron wedge in an otherwise seemingly solid log and handed Democrats a sledgehammer to hit it.

It should be pounded hard, loud and continuously until that log splits.

Then Democrats should light a fire with the kindling—and make sure it burns hot.

To see the entire 6-minute, 13-second speech by Dr. Joseph Ladapo announcing the ending of vaccine mandates in Florida, click here.

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

After Alligator Alcatraz: A modest proposal

Aug. 25, 2025 by David Silverberg

On Thursday, Aug. 21, Judge Kathleen Williams of the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled that the state of Florida’s concentration, detention and deportation camp, Alligator Alcatraz, had to cease operations and be dismantled within 60 days, which falls on Oct. 21.

The State of Florida appealed the ruling within an hour of the decision’s announcement. That appeal is now pending and could go up to the Supreme Court.

However that appeal plays out, it is not too soon to begin thinking about what should happen to the site of what had previously been the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.

This essay recommends that the site be converted into the “William J. Mitsch Memorial Wetlaculture Experiment and Everglades Restoration Project.”

The article will review the court ruling and explain the proposal.

The ruling and reaction

In her ruling, Williams found that the State of Florida, in its haste to set up Alligator Alcatraz, had violated federal laws requiring an assessment of the camp’s environmental impact.

The most relevant law was the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), “which requires that major federal actions significantly affecting the human environment undergo environmental review processes.”

While state and federal officials (Defendants) acknowledged possible “deficiencies” in their haste to establish the camp, they argued that any injunction should be vacated while the case made its way through the judicial process (i.e., the camp should be allowed to continue functioning throughout legal deliberations).

Williams was having none of it. Indeed, so blatant was the state’s indifference to due process and the rule of law that Williams’ scorn comes through even in the dry language of a court ruling.

“Here, there weren’t ‘deficiencies’ in the agency’s process,” she wrote. “There was no process.” [Emphasis ours.]

She continued: “The Defendants consulted with no stakeholders or experts and did no evaluation of the environmental risks and alternatives from which the Court may glean the likelihood that the agency would choose the same course if it had done a NEPA-compliant evaluation.”

(The full, 82-page text of William’s ruling can be read here and is also available for viewing and download at the end of this article.)

The ruling also dealt with issues of venue, finding that the Southern District of Florida was the proper court to consider the case; the degree of permanent environmental harm the camp was causing; and responsibility for the camp’s establishment and operations (the State of Florida rather than the federal government).

Because of its violations of law and environmental impact, Williams issued an injunction that prohibited the defendants from installing any new lighting “or doing any paving, filling, excavating, or fencing; or doing any other site expansion, including placing or erecting any additional buildings, tents, dormitories, or other residential or administrative facilities,” although modification of existing buildings is permitted for the sake of safety or environmental mitigation.

New detainees cannot be brought to the camp.

The order applies to everyone involved in camp operations, whether state or federal.

According to the order, “No later than sixty (60) days,” which falls on October 21, state and federal officials have to remove the fencing, lighting and “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this project”—essentially, returning the site to its prior state and giving Miccosukee Tribe members complete access to the area.

Lastly, the plaintiffs were required to post a token, $100 bond.

Not only was an appeal of the order immediately filed in the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Ga., but it was predictably denounced by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

“This is a judge that was not going to give us a fair shake,” DeSantis said the day after the ruling during remarks in Panama City. “This was preordained, very much an activist judge that is trying to do policy from the bench.”

He continued: “This is not going to deter us. We’re going to continue working on the deportations, advancing that mission,” referring to President Donald Trump’s roundups and deportations.

The state is proceeding with plans for a “Deportation Depot” camp west of Jacksonville, Fla.

“We’re not going to be deterred; we’re totally in the right on this,” DeSantis said. “But I would also note, because of the success of Alligator Alcatraz, there’s demand for more.”

While appealing the ruling, Florida officials may simply ignore the judge’s order. There is precedent for this.

In that case, Williams was the judge whose order was defied by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. In April she issued an injunction against enforcing a Florida law making it a misdemeanor for undocumented migrants to enter the state. Uthmeier sent a letter to police chiefs and sheriffs saying that the injunction was legally wrong and he could not force them to obey it. In June, Williams found Uthmeier in contempt but his only punishment was to produce biweekly reports on enforcement actions.

“Litigants cannot change the plain meaning of words as it suits them, especially when conveying a court’s clear and unambiguous order,” Williams wrote at the time. “Fidelity to the rule of law can have no other meaning.”

It remains to be seen if those words will have any impact on the dismantlement of Alligator Alcatraz.

A modest proposal: Restoration and renewal

*Bill Mitsch in his natural habitat, 2021. (Photo: Bill Mitsch)*

William Jerome Mitsch was one of the world’s foremost scientific experts on wetlands like the Everglades and did much of his work at Florida Gulf Coast University. In 2022 he retired after a 47-year career and passed away in February of this year at the age of 77.

(To see a full profile of Mitsch and his work see: “On a personal note: An appreciation of Bill Mitsch, a wetlands warrior.”)

In 2018, Mitsch proposed a solution to the problem of pollution affecting the Everglades.

He called it “wetlaculture.”

The concept was that pollution could be defeated by creating new wetlands and this could be done by planting sawgrass, which is native and thrives in this area. The sawgrass would filter out contaminants while letting water flow. These new wetlands could be created on previously cultivated land. He believed that the grass would create soil so fertile that nitrate fertilizers would be unnecessary.

He calculated that new wetlands could be created over a 10-year time period. At the end of that time, the soil would be flipped and used for farming for 10 years. Then, it could be flipped again to lie fallow for another 10 years and so on, indefinitely.

A small-scale Wetlaculture experiment is already under way in Freedom Park in Naples, Fla. There, 28 bins hold sawgrass and researchers experiment with different levels of water and nutrients in the different bins as the sawgrass grows. Scientists measure nutrients in the soil and see if nitrates and phosphorous are being removed. When the soil is deemed to be clean and fertile enough they’ll plant crops and see how well they grow.

*A sign marks the spot of the current Wetlaculture experiment in Freedom Park in Naples, Fla. (Photo: Author)*

Now the time has come to attempt a Wetlaculture experiment on a grander scale—perhaps the scale of the 39-acre site of Alligator Alcatraz.

Commentary: A better future

If Alligator Alcatraz is in fact closed and dismantled the “William J. Mitsch Memorial Wetlaculture Experiment and Everglades Restoration Project,” would be a most fitting replacement.

The concrete, asphalt and especially the runway could be scraped and removed and in its place be planted with sawgrass with an eye to flipping it after 10 years, or whenever scientists deem it appropriate. The plantings would likely restore water flow, cleanse pollution and prepare the soil for crops in their turn.

Instead of destroying the natural environment, the “William J. Mitsch Memorial Wetlaculture Experiment and Everglades Restoration Project” would restore it. Instead of the constant floodlights, the area would be restored to the darkness that made it part of Big Cypress’ International Dark Sky Park. Instead of noise and traffic, there would be quiet and calm. Instead of harming wildlife, animals could thrive. Instead of fencing out the public and the Miccosukee Indian Tribe, all would have access.

As for the expense, it would be far less than the $450 million expected to cost Florida taxpayers to run Alligator Alcatraz this year alone. It would also cost Florida and the nation far, far less to maintain in every subsequent year. Moreover, because it would be a scientific experiment, it would be eligible for academic and research funding.

Most of all, it would replace a concentration camp that is likely to be a blot and a stain on Florida’s history and on the history of the United States. Rather than a disgrace, Florida and the Everglades would have a site that improves the future, addresses environmental challenges and would be in harmony with the land, water, plants, animals, people and climate. Instead of punishment, the Mitsch Memorial Experiment would be a place of possibilities.

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it,” Yogi Berra, the Yankee baseball catcher famous for his malapropisms, supposedly said. Along the old Tamiami Trail, right on the Collier County-Dade County line, Florida and the American people have come to a fork in the road. One path leads to a concentration camp of deliberate human suffering, oppression and brutality. The other path leads to a restoration of nature’s balance, a hopeful future and great potential benefits.

The time has come to take the fork in the road. A “William J. Mitsch Memorial Wetlaculture Experiment and Everglades Restoration Project” is clearly the better path to follow.

*The Everglades. (Photo: National Park Service/Robert Krayer)*

To read all of The Paradise Progressive’s coverage of Bill Mitsch, click here.

Click the button below to read and download the full 82-page text of Judge Kathleen Williams’ decision.

Alligator Alcatraz closure order 8-21-25 Download

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Collier County ‘Bill of Rights Sanctuary’ law could be lifeline for Alligator Alcatraz detainees

*The ordinance establishing Collier County as a Sanctuary County.*

Aug. 21, 2025 by David Silverberg

State and federal actions at the Alligator Alcatraz detention and deportation camp that violate the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights could be nullified under Collier County’s “Bill of Rights Sanctuary County” ordinance, since the camp is in Collier County, Florida.

Violators of these rights can be personally held liable in civil litigation under the ordinance.

This may present a lifeline to detainees and a possible avenue of release for their attorneys to pursue.

The camp is intended as a holding facility for undocumented migrants seized in roundups prior to their deportation. It faces growing opposition from local residents, religious leaders, the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and environmentalists. (For more on the camp see: “Straight outta Dachau: Past lessons and potential futures for ‘Alligator Alcatraz’.”)

The venue argument

On Monday, Aug. 18, Judge Rodolfo Ruiz of the US District Court in the Southern District of Florida ruled that the proper venue for resolution of a lawsuit regarding Alligator Alcatraz was in the Middle District of Florida.

Prior to that, lawyers for detainees being held in the camp had filed their lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida, which covers Miami-Dade County since the site sits on the boundaries of Collier and Miami-Dade counties and the facility was previously run by Miami-Dade County.

(The lawsuit brought by the detainees’ lawyer named Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as defendant and charged that authorities at Alligator Alcatraz had denied detainees their First and Fifth amendment rights by blocking and impeding access to counsel.)

*The Southern District of Florida, comprised of Broward, Dade, Highlands, Indian River, Martin, Monroe, Okeechobee, Palm Beach, and St. Lucie counties. (Map: US District Court)*

However, the state, which established the camp and opened it on July 1, argued that the camp’s proper address was Ochopee, Florida, which is in Collier County.

(The camp sits on the 39-acre site of what was the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport. Two thirds of it is in Collier County, although the training facility was run by Miami-Dade County. Its precise coordinates are: 25°51′42″N 080°53′49″W.)

State lawyers argued that because it was in Collier County, the proper venue for any litigation was in the Middle District of Florida, which includes that county.

*The Middle District of Florida, comprised of* Baker, Bradford, Brevard, Charlotte, Citrus, Clay, Collier, Columbia, De Soto, Duval, Flagler, Glades, Hamilton, Hardee, Hendry, Hernando, Hillsborough, Lake, Lee, Manatee, Marion, Nassau, Orange, Osceola, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Putnam, St. Johns, Sarasota, Seminole, Sumter, Suwannee, Union, and Volusia counties. (Map: US District Court)

In his ruling, Ruiz agreed, officially establishing Collier County as the location of the camp. (The full text of the 47-page ruling is available for reading and download below.)

Collier County is a ‘Bill of Rights Sanctuary county’

On Aug. 22, 2023, by a vote of 4 to 1, the Collier County Board of Commissioners passed an ordinance declaring the county to be “a Bill of Rights Sanctuary County.”

(The full text of the ordinance is available for viewing and download at the end of this article.)

“Collier County has the right to be free from the commanding hand of the federal government and has the right to refuse to cooperate with federal government officials in response to unconstitutional federal government measures, and to proclaim a Bill of Rights Sanctuary for law-abiding citizens in its County,” states the ordinance.

It defines an “unlawful act” as “Any federal act, law, order, rule, or regulation, which violates or unreasonably restricts, impedes, or impinges upon an individual’s Constitutional rights including, but not limited to, those enumerated in Amendments 1 through 10 to the United States Constitution.”

Further, it states: “Any such ‘Unlawful Act’ is invalid in Collier County and shall not be recognized by Collier County, and shall be considered null, void and of no effect in Collier County, Florida.”

The ordinance defines penalties for violations in Section Five: “Anyone within the jurisdiction of Collier County, Florida, accused of being in violation of this ordinance may be sued in Circuit Court for declaratory and injunctive relief, damages and attorneys’ fees.”

Of note: The ordinance specifically states that “anyone” in the county may be sued if they violate a person’s constitutional rights.

Analysis: Possible implications

Because Collier County is a “Bill of Rights Sanctuary” county, Alligator Alcatraz detainees may have standing to sue the US government for violation of their constitutional rights.

What is more, their guards and the operators of the camp may be personally liable for any constitutional violations under the same ordinance.

Further, county employees, officials and law enforcement officers are prohibited from aiding, assisting or abetting federal Alligator Alcatraz activities if those activities are determined to violate constitutional rights.

Detainee lawsuits under the county ordinance—and the ordinance itself—could pause or halt transfers into the camp and force due process adherence and proper treatment. It could also be the basis for an injunction stopping the camp’s operations. (The camp is already under an injunction prohibiting construction and infrastructure expansion. This injunction is set to expire today, Aug. 21.)

The county ordinance has never been applied or tested in court. During the debate preceding its passage, opponents argued that it was unconstitutional on its face. Nonetheless, the Collier County Board of Commissioners passed it.

Environmental lawsuit

A different lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida is currently ongoing and has venue issues similar to the one ruled on by Judge Ruiz.

That lawsuit was filed in US District Court in Miami on June 27. It named the heads of the US Department of Homeland Security, its US Immigration and Customs Enforcement directorate, the Florida Division of Emergency Management and Miami-Dade County as defendants.

To read The Paradise Progressive’s previous coverage of the Collier County sanctuary ordinance’s passage and the concept of sanctuary in general, click here.

Click the button below to read and download the full, 6-page Collier County Bill of Rights Sanctuary Ordinance.

Collier County Ordinance 2023-39 Engrossed FINAL Download

Click the button below to read and download the full 47-page ruling by Judge Rodolfo Ruiz.

08-18-25 Order Dismissing in Part and Transferring Plaintiffs’ Complaint for Improper Venue Download

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

From White House to Gold House: Trump, Nero and remodeling madness

*An angry mob of betrayed Trump supporters attack the White House Ballroom in the artificial intelligence-generated video “MAGA Ballroom 2028.”*

Aug. 11, 2025 by David Silverberg

On July 31, President Donald Trump announced that he had ordered the building of a new $200 million ballroom onto the White House.

The official announcement stated that Trump was “solving” the problem of too little White House event space and the ballroom was “much-needed.” It would be “exquisite,” “ornately designed” and “carefully crafted,” according to the announcement.

He also stated that the ballroom would be paid for by private donations.

The proposed White House ballroom as conceived by the architect, viewed from above. The new ballroom is at the center, connected to the existing White House (on the right) by a columned patio or corridor. (Art: McCrery Architects)

*The proposed White House ballroom as conceived by the architect, viewed from the southwest. The new ballroom is the square addition on the right. (Art: McCrery Architects)*

*The interior conception of the proposed White House ballroom.* *(Art: McCrery Architects)*

The ballroom is hardly the first physical change Trump has made to the White House. He had the famous Rose Garden paved over to create a plantless patio.

*Before and after photos of the Rose Garden.*

He’s festooned the Oval Office and the rest of the building with the garish gold ornamentation for which he is known.

*Gold flourishes on the walls and ceiling of the Oval Office.*

*President Donald Trump walks through an Oval Office door with gold decorations he had installed.*

Trump’s building and gilding of the White House is reminiscent of another potentate who extravagantly built an elaborate domicile—and who had gold as his dominant decorating scheme.

The Gold House

A profile of Nero on a Roman gold coin called an “aureas.” (Photo: American Numismatic Society)

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus is better known to the world as Nero, and is one of the most infamous Roman emperors for his madness, extravagance, unpredictable and arbitrary rule and extreme and indiscriminate cruelty. He served as Rome’s leading politician and decisionmaker from the years 54 to 68 of the Common Era.

Starting in 64 Nero built a palace for himself named the Domus Aurea in Latin, or Golden House in English. It was constructed on land burned by the Great Fire of 64 that leveled enormous portions of Rome—and which many critics suspected Nero had ordered set in order to clear the space.

Nero thought he was invincible and untouchable. He murdered or forced the suicide of the most distinguished and able Roman politicians and statesmen and replaced them with his own sycophants and toadies. As the historian Suetonius put it: “Transported and puffed up with such successes, as he considered them, he boasted that no princeps had ever known what power he really had… .”

Nero wanted to surpass the Hellenistic palaces of overseas kingdoms and he had a grandiose, malignantly narcissistic sense of himself, so he built to impress. The land for the Gold House is estimated by some scholars to have covered a massive 300 acres in the heart of Rome. It had 150 large and small rooms and a footprint of 16,000 square meters (over 172,000 square feet, about the equivalent of three football fields). Some rooms had ceilings 12 feet high, all of them decorated and embellished with gold and jewels, with one, a circular dining room, that had ceiling panels that could be opened to shower flower petals and perfume on diners as they revolved around Nero in the center like the sun.

*A tour guide in the remains of the Gold House displays a schematic of its plans. (Photo: Author)*

*An overhead visualization of the complete Gold House and grounds. (Art: JR Casals)*

Not one to keep his light under a bushel, Nero commissioned a 120-foot high statue of himself to stand at the entrance (the Statue of Liberty is 305 feet high).

*Visualization of the Colossus of Nero with other buildings of the time, for scale.*

He also had an immense, artificial lake built surrounded by miniature cities and landscapes of fields, farmlands, vineyards and forests populated with every sort of animal.

After a mere four years, the house was completed in 68. When Nero dedicated it, he remarked, “Good! Now I can at last begin to live like a human being.”

Nero didn’t have much time to enjoy his power or his monster mansion because that same year, faced with his misrule, extreme taxation, public discontent, provincial uprisings and mutinies by discontented generals, even the otherwise subservient and bullied Senate revolted and declared him an enemy of Rome. Now the target of all Romans, after trying to escape the city he chose to die by his own hand.

The Gold House was a huge embarrassment to all subsequent Roman emperors, who did what they could to obliterate it—and did so by overbuilding it with structures that the entire Roman public could enjoy.

On the giant lake the emperor Vespasian ordered the building of the Flavian Amphitheater, or what is today called the Colosseum. Other emperors like Titus and Trajan built huge public baths.

Nero himself was subject to a “hostis iudicatio,” a posthumous trial for treason, and he was subject to the Roman practice of “damnatio memoriae,” the damnation of his memory. His name was erased from monuments and records and his statues removed or defaced. While his giant colossus remained standing, its head was replaced with a representation of the sun god Sol Invictus.

Today there’s barely any hint of the Gold House. Tourists enter it through an otherwise obscure entrance in a hillside. Tours are underground but visitors can get a sense of its vastness in the dimly lit corridors and chambers.

*The modern entrance to the Gold House. (Photo: Author)*

*During tours visitors and guides wear hardhats in the enormous rooms. (Photo: Author)*

The Golden House is an object lesson that excess and insanity may ultimately bring about a reckoning that topples both the ruler and the buildings he constructs.

The White House

The American Executive Mansion—it wasn’t formally called the White House until 1901—while hardly a hovel, was a relatively modest presidential home for its time and so it has remained since it was first occupied in 1800.

When designed it was intended to reflect republican simplicity and virtue in contrast to the grandiose monarchical palaces of Europe. It was also intended to convey the dignity and stability of the American executive and inspire respect rather than awe. Its classical proportions and symmetry symbolized the rationality and enlightenment of the American government itself.

The design was selected in a 9-way competition. Thomas Jefferson entered anonymously but lost out to Irish-born immigrant architect James Hoban.

While the White House has been renovated many times—including a complete gutting and structural rebuilding between 1949 and 1951—the renovations were always made with respect for the building’s history, significance and the intentions of its founders, which included George Washington.

One of the most notable renewals was overseen by first lady Jaqueline Kennedy, who unveiled her efforts to the world in a television tour on Valentine’s Day, 1962. She’d overseen an interior redesign that reflected the building’s past and its historic meaning, enhancing its elegance and stature, brought back significant objects, invited widespread public participation and drew on the knowledge of experts and historians.

By contrast, Trump’s changes, including his announced ballroom, have been unilateral, secret and one might say, dictatorial. Given his almost total lack of historical perspective, knowledge or interest, they pay no respect to the building’s past or its meaning.

When Trump announced his ballroom, he had already selected McCrery Architects as designer, Clark Construction for the building and AECOM for the engineering. There were no public requests for proposals, design competitions, competitive bids, transparent selections or publicly accessible contracts. (Given Trump’s past record of non-payment, one hopes for the contractors’ sake that they’re getting their cash up front!)

As a result, the mockery began almost immediately.

*An AI image mocking the Trump ballroom. (Art: AI/anonymous)*

It has also sparked resentment, as have his other changes. Nowhere was this more clearly expressed than in an AI-generated video titled “MAGA Ballroom 2028,” created by Ari Kuschnir, a digital consultant and founder of the company “m ss ng p eces.”

This 1-minute, 45-second video depicts angry, resentful MAGA supporters suffering while Trump and his Cabinet members feast in the new ballroom. The people ultimately revolt and attack the building the same way the Trump-incited rioters attacked the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021.

*Windows shatter inside the Trump ballroom as rioters attack it in the AI video “MAGA Ballroom 2028.”*

While “MAGA Ballroom 2028” may appear extreme and emotional, it’s a good reminder that leaders, like Nero, who behave erratically, spend extravagantly and flaunt their imperiousness in the form of ostentatious, egotistical buildings, may ultimately face a very nasty comeuppance at the hands of the people they seek to dominate.

To read a detailed account of Nero and the Great Fire of Rome, click the button below.

Nero and the Great Fire of Rome Download

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Heavily redacted Alligator Alcatraz evacuation plan sheds little light on hurricane response

*A hurricane hits Alligator Alcatraz. (Art: AI for TPP/ChatGPT)*

Aug. 4, 2025 by David Silverberg

A draft hurricane evacuation plan for the Alligator Alcatraz concentration camp in the Everglades released by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is so heavily redacted that the public and relevant officials cannot determine its effectiveness or use it for planning purposes.

(The full document is available for viewing and download at the end of this posting.)

“We can’t go by just blacked-out information in a 30-page document and just trust the DeSantis administration,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-25-Fla.) told CBS News Miami in an interview. “This is what is unacceptable. We absolutely need to have a clear, written, confirmed plan in hand from the Division of Emergency Management and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], who are responsible for these detainees at the end of the day.”

“The 33-page draft plan appears to detail alternate facilities that could be used in an evacuation, procedures for detainee transportation and other measures that would be enacted in the event of a powerful storm or other emergency,” stated state Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-42-Orlando) in a Facebook posting. “But specific details are a secret. Officials blacked out almost all of the pages, citing exemptions in the state’s public records law that allow information about ‘tactical operations’ during emergencies to be shielded from disclosure.”

DeSantis released the draft “South Florida Detention Facility Continuity of Operations Plan” on Wednesday, July 30 in response to a report in The Miami Herald newspaper the same day that Alligator Alcatraz lacked an evacuation plan in the event of a major weather event.

“Legacy media made a mistake by concocting a false narrative that can so easily be disproven…” he posted on X. “Failed drive-by attempt…”

He released the draft to Florida’s Voice Radio, a conservative media platform, which headlined its X posting, “WRONG AGAIN! The Miami Herald reports FAKE NEWS that @GovRonDeSantis, @KevinGuthrieFL and @FLSERT have no “formal hurricane plan” for Alligator Alcatraz. Here it is.”

The Voice then posted two pages of the plan, the cover and a summary sheet. The full 33-page plan was then released to media outlets with extensive redactions. (The plan refers to Alligator Alcatraz as the South Florida Detention Facility (SFDF), its bureaucratic designation.)

The evacuation plan was not posted to any official state website that this author could determine. Since it is still a draft—essentially, the concept of plan—The Miami Herald was technically correct that Alligator Alcatraz does not have an evacuation plan.

Commentary: The hidden dangers of hiding

Because details of the plan remain secret, emergency managers, law enforcement, medical personnel and local officials cannot take it into account when they make their own hurricane plans should an evacuation be necessary, nor can they coordinate their efforts with those of authorities, either state or federal, at Alligator Alcatraz.

This is particularly acute for officials and law enforcement officers in Collier and Miami-Dade counties, where Alligator Alcatraz sits astride their mutual borders.

There is a historic precedent for a plan’s secrecy causing extreme harm during an emergency.

In 1906 the emergency plans for the city of San Francisco resided in the mind of one man: Fire Chief Dennis Sullivan, who never shared them with anyone. Sullivan was incapacitated in the first shock of the earthquake that occurred in the early hours of April 18. Living on the top story of one of the city’s firehouses, he fell through the floor into the basement when the building broke apart, getting severely scalded by a broken radiator when he hit the bottom.

Sullivan never recovered from his injuries, dying three days later. As a result, first responders and officials had no guidance or direction in their response, which contributed to the city’s extensive damage when it was ravaged by fire.

As the 2012 book Masters of Disaster: The Political and Leadership Lessons of America’s Greatest Disasters by this author states: “…A critical lesson from the San Francisco earthquake and fire is that a plan is only as good as the people who know it. Disaster plans have to be known in advance by key decisionmakers and shared among those people who will implement them. They cannot rely entirely on a single individual and ultimately, they cannot be kept secret.”

Alligator Alcatraz has been so hastily thrown together and poorly conceived that nothing about it—not its detention, inmate processing, housing, food, shelter, or evacuation plan—can be judged at face value as acceptable.

Further, its secrecy in all aspects, whether the refusal to allow unannounced inspections, the difficulties of attorneys to meet their clients (currently the subject of a lawsuit), the blindsiding of local officials, and now the covertness of its evacuation plan make everything about it suspect. As an unfinalized draft, there is no telling which officials have input into the final product. Even then, if this is the final plan, its secrecy to all but a few officials renders it ineffective.

If Alligator Alcatraz is in all respects legal and proper, as DeSantis contends, it should be open to inspection, visits, detainee access, due process, public scrutiny, press examination and all the other legal standards of incarceration that govern correctional facilities in the United States.

And an evacuation plan that’s secret to all but a few is no plan at all.

Click on the button below to read and download the full “South Florida Detention Facility Continuity of Operations Plan” with redactions.

Draft South Florida Detention Facility Continuity of Operations Plan 7-30-25 Download

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

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

‘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!