Never Have I Ever
The “Military Camp” Lie Behind Alligator Alcatraz
“It’s a temporary emergency facility—like a military camp.”
That’s the justification offered by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and echoed by GOP leadership to explain away the appalling human rights conditions at the Everglades detention site known as Alligator Alcatraz. But as someone who actually lived, worked, and deployed in real U.S. military field environments… I call absolute bullshit.
Also, I call extra bullshit... like, tell me when Kristi Noem, DHS Barbie, has ever even been to a deployed or austere location? How can she speak on this at all? Did she watch five minutes of Band of Brothers, then suddenly decide she has the street cred to speak on military field conditions? Honestly, I was USAF and I feel out of place speaking on this… come on man.
"Like a Military Camp"?
Let's Talk Standards…
Even in the most austere, forward-operating locations during wartime, the U.S. military maintains minimum standards that are leagues above what’s being inflicted on detainees in Florida.
Bottom line:
Unless a unit is on a short-duration recon or assault mission, even forward-deployed troops get AC. You don’t stuff people in a steel cage with no ventilation and pretend that’s anywhere close to military practice.
Let’s Get This Straight:
Alligator Alcatraz Isn’t a “Military Camp.”
It’s a Goddamn Concentration Camp.
And now, other red states want in on the horror franchise.
Let’s drop the pleasantries:
This isn’t a detention facility.
It’s not a temporary staging site.
It sure as hell isn’t a “military camp.”
It’s a government-sanctioned outdoor prison, where American civilians and migrants alike are being crammed into cages by the dozens, sweating through 100+ degree heat, drinking water from the toilet, and eating food described as rotting, worm-ridden slop—and it's all intentional.
🐊 The Sickening Expansion Plan
As I said in my last article addressing Alligator Alcatraz, it is a blueprint... and now, we have other red states clamoring for a piece of the pie.
South Carolina lawmakers are reportedly lobbying to open their own version of Alligator Alcatraz. The pitch?
“We’ve got swamps full of gators, too.”
Let that sink in.
Rather than condemning the abuse, they’re competing to host it... as if this were an economic development opportunity, not a mass human rights violation.
They don’t see suffering... they see contracts, federal money, headlines, and campaign fuel.
They’re turning the newest American Made Concentration Camp into a southern export.
What This Actually Is
Let’s get painfully specific:
No criminal charges, no trial, no process for many of the people detained
(NOMAD! THEY ARE HERE ILLEGALLY!!! THAT’S THEIR CRIME!!!)
It’s not a felony. It’s not a violent crime. It carries the same legal weight as letting your driver’s license expire—paperwork infractions, not cartel-level felonies. Come TF on, man.
Tampa Bay Times – Some Alligator Alcatraz detainees have no criminal recordOpen-air cages with up to 32 people per unit
KGNS Report on Cage ConditionsToilet water as drinking water
KGNS Confirmation on Toilet Sink DrinkingFood unfit for wartime combat zones
Daily Beast – Inhumane Food ConditionsMedical neglect, extreme heat, no AC
KGNS Reporting on Heat and Lack of Care
And we’ve already seen this military propaganda machine run the same type of “patriotic,” “orderly,” and “just like the military” narrative when it came to GITMO. This is the same pattern repeating itself—and we are watching it happen in real time.
GITMO (Guantanamo Bay) was repeatedly defended by U.S. officials as a lawful, well-run military detention site, despite numerous reports of torture, indefinite detention without trial, and the facility operating outside the protections of both U.S. and international law.
As a GWOT veteran, I’m not okay with the U.S. becoming a party to this kind of abuse again—especially not on American soil. These are the tired, poor, and huddled masses, showing up on our shores looking for a better life. And we’re throwing them in cages? This is textbook concentration camp behavior, not in the metaphorical sense—in the literal, systemic, state-run sense.
The Military Excuse is BS
No service member in a combat zone—not even in the worst Forward Operating Base or patrol base—would be subject to this level of dehumanization.
In Afghanistan, Iraq, even Syria:
We had HVAC in our tents
We had MREs and water buffaloes, not feces-laced rations and toilet taps
We had structure, accountability, medical support, and inspections
If we ever treated prisoners of war this way? We’d be court-martialed, investigated, and internationally condemned.
But because these are migrants—because they’re brown, poor, undocumented, and politically convenient scapegoats—we’re told it’s fine.
Worse: we’re told it’s American.
This Is America’s “Never Again” Moment—And We’re Blowing It
We said we’d never forget the Japanese internment camps.
We said we’d never be like the countries that ran barbed-wire death pens.
But now we have governors bragging about how many gators they can feed and a president joking about teaching detainees how to zig-zag run to try to get away from a gator in the swamp.
What are we doing here?
Why are we okay with this?
Why are we silent while this is happening on our soil?
Where are the damn church leaders? I’ve only heard from the Catholic side of the fence thus far- the rest, eerily silent….
Where are the veterans who know better?
Where is the spine of a nation that claims to be a beacon of human rights?
Why aren’t more people shouting from the rooftops?
Open your damned mouths.
📚 Bibliography
🏕️ Alligator Alcatraz Conditions
Tampa Bay Times – Some Alligator Alcatraz Detainees Have No Criminal Record
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida/2025/07/13/some-alligator-alcatraz-detainees-have-no-criminal-record-list-showsKGNS – Lawmakers Visit Alligator Alcatraz After Being Blocked
https://www.kgns.tv/2025/07/13/lawmakers-visit-alligator-alcatraz-after-being-blockedThe Daily Beast – Detainees Allege Inhumane Conditions
https://www.thedailybeast.com/alligator-alcatraz-detainees-allege-inhumane-conditions-like-rats-in-an-experiment
⚖️ Legal & Immigration Status
American Immigration Council – Immigration Enforcement and Criminal Justice
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/immigration-enforcement-and-criminal-justice-systemACLU – Debunking the Myth of ‘Illegality’
https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-legal-term-illegal-immigrantU.S. Code: 8 U.S.C. § 1325 – Improper Entry
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325
⛓️ GITMO Comparisons
ACLU – Guantanamo: A Stain on U.S. History
https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/detention/guantanamoHuman Rights Watch – Guantanamo a Global Symbol of Abuse
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/11/us-guantanamo-global-symbol-abuseThe Atlantic – The ‘Good Order’ Myth of Guantanamo
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/01/guantanamos-good-order-myth/267142
Doomed to repeat now on repeat. Most of these guys — Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Tom Homan — need to be the subject of investigative journalism and probably sued individually as well as their governmental departments. But our anger and disgust is muted because we don’t know history and actual news — not TV slanted to keep the administration of their backs — that reaches the broad swaths of us, the reds and the blues and indies. Before the stratification of news into the palms of our hands, we agreed a little bit on facts. Now a fact has to hit us in the head or the pocketbook for us to raise our heads and go, “They’re doing that, really, I didn’t vote for that.” You are writing all the right things. What I’m trying to say is people need to see Alligator Alcatraz, the cages, the single toilet for 32 prisoners, the conditions and the people being held. Reading you is helpful and how can we get you read far and wide? But the visuals need everyone’s eyeballs. That this is done in our name is intolerable and makes me feel pathetic.