Photos by B. Scott McLendon
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In his 2005 book State of Exception, Giorgio Agamben explores how legal frameworks are suspended during supposed times of crises. Building on the work of Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt, who, in his 1922 book Political Theology, offered a fierce critique of liberal democracy and presented the state of exception as a tool to reinforce state authority, Agamben critiques this dynamic to illustrate how modern democracies risk slipping into permanent authoritarianism and illiberalism.
Floridians are living under a state of exception, though many may not be aware of it. In the Anglo-Saxon tradition, the preferred term for this legal phenomenon is martial law or emergency powers, whereas in Italian and French theory, the terms “emergency decrees” and “state of siege” are predominant. Constitutional law in the United States, including in Florida, prohibits the permanent suspension of civil administration. Instead, it employs Executive Orders to declare a State of Emergency, which activates emergency management protocols and grants the executive specific, temporary powers to manage crises like hurricanes or public health threats.
Those powers have been misused by Governor DeSantis. Since initially instituting an emergency declaration in January of 2023, he has renewed it over twenty times, allowing him to continuously access emergency management funds for immigration enforcement and to circumvent competitive processes when awarding state contracts to vendors operating in detention centers like Alligator Alcatraz. Florida’s Division of Emergency Management (FDEM), which operates that detention center, has suspended 25 statutes and rules using the immigration state of emergency justification.
There are now strong indications that Alligator Alcatraz may be closing soon. The New York Times reported on May 12th that vendors inside the detention camp were notified that detainees would be transferred by the start of June and the site would be dismantled over the following weeks. Congressman Maxwell Frost from Orlando toured the site shortly after and shared details of his visit. “It is very apparent from my trip here today, and from my oversight visit, that they are winding down this facility (and) they are winding down staff,” Frost said at a press conference held immediately after the conclusion of his inspection. He also observed two flights transferring those detained there to other places, the dismantling of at least one detention tent, and was told that the total detainee population had dwindled to 655 from the 1,400 figure previously shared by FDEM.
The impending closure of the site is also alluded to by the change in tone of Florida public officials when asked about it. As if a memo went out with talking points, DeSantis said in a press conference that if the state “shut the lights out on it tomorrow … it served its purpose.” Congressman Byron Donalds, who is the presumptive Republican frontrunner for Florida Governor this year, expressed similar sentiments when saying it was considered by state authorities to be a “temporary situation”, adding that “it fulfilled its purpose.” U.S. Senator Ashley Moody, running to be elected after being appointed to the position in 2025, seemed eager to put the detention camp in the rearview mirror when saying that it’s “time to declare victory and move on.”
This is a far cry from the triumphalist and vicious rhetoric employed when Alligator Alcatraz first opened. Who can forget unelected Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who, like Moody, was appointed to his position, declaring, “If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.” Predictably, the prospect of feeding migrants to alligators was not palatable for Florida voters, and subsequent polling showed the detention camp was politically toxic, with just a 35 percent approval rating and 51 percent disapproval. Those are not numbers Republicans like to see when in a midterm year that is looking difficult for them.
There’s nothing to defend when it comes to Alligator Alcatraz. The state raided Florida’s Emergency Management Fund, traditionally meant for disaster response, for about a billion dollars spent at the detention camp, with operating costs running upwards of a million dollars a day. That’s money that could have been spent combating the wildfires raging during Florida’s recent drought, or preparing and responding to hurricane season. Instead, this money went to contractors; in one egregious example, a porta-potty company named Doodie Calls received $92 million in checks.
Hefty political donations often preceded the disbursement of multimillion-dollar contracts; for instance, IRG Global Emergency Management Inc., a Texas-based emergency management company, donated $10,000 to the Republican Party of Florida and, within days, received a $1.1 million contract to provide “operational support services” at “Alligator Alcatraz.” The company would also be awarded two more contracts, totaling $5.1 million.
The treatment of immigrants detained at the detention camp has been abysmal. Reports consistently described conditions such as overflowing toilets that seeped into sleeping areas, a lack of showers, constant 24-hour lighting, exposure to insects, and poor-quality food and water. Detainees described having to use their bare hands to scoop up feces from the toilets, as the lack of water pressure left them unable to flush. There were also routine shackling, physical beatings by guards, and prolonged solitary confinement.
Justo Betancourt, a Cuban man who spent months at Alligator Alcatraz, lost about 50 pounds while there; his wrists and ankles were bruised from the shackles he was forced to wear, and he suffered a stroke due to his ongoing deteriorating health. International human rights watchdog Amnesty International concluded that the use of punishments such as the “box”, in which detainees were placed in a 2×2 foot cage-like structure, left restrained on the ground while exposed to the sun and elements for hours without sufficient water or food, constituted torture.
The extrajudicial nature of Alligator Alcatraz is so stark that Florida refused to sign federal legal agreements giving the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which administers Alligator Alcatraz, the authority to conduct immigration detention. These agreements, such as 287(G) or IGSA contracts, would clarify which entity has legal custody of people jailed at Alligator Alcatraz and inform legal processes for detainees. The lack of legal clarification resulted in the erosion of due process and civil rights for detainees who were held for months without the opportunity to meet with their lawyers, or even an immigration officer or judge. They were basically held incommunicado, preventing families or lawyers from locating them.
If Alligator Alcatraz is dismantled, the story doesn’t end with its shuttering. Most of the people detained there will end up transferred to other detention centers, and their families will need assistance. The organizations Workers Circle and Sanctuary of the South, which have both advocated against Alligator Alcatraz since its opening, are launching a noble campaign to ensure that no human being held at Alligator Alcatraz is left without counsel. There is also close to a billion dollars in taxpayer funds that went to vendors through no-bid state contracts. When this detention camp closes, many people in the private sector will have walked away having made millions of dollars.
Giorgio Agamben describes the state of exception as “a space devoid of law, a zone of anomie in which all legal determination is deactivated”. That’s exactly what Governor DeSantis created in Alligator Alcatraz through the misuse of emergency powers, an extrajudicial black site in which torture and political grifting took place in a systematized manner, under his watch.