Is there justice, along with snakes and gators, in the Everglades? | Opinion

Much has been written about Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier’s elation over construction of an immigrant detention camp in the middle of the Everglades they cleverly dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

It’s already been noted that:

∙ The detention camp threatens the fragile Everglades eco-system, which is now the subject of a lawsuit by Friends of the Everglades and its allies;

∙ We’re just entering peak of hurricane season!

∙ It was constructed on Miccosukee ancestral lands without their consent, and probably without consultation;

∙ The property was stolen from Miami-Dade County based on a declaration of a phony emergency, and

∙ Now family members of detainees are reporting horrible conditions.

But DeSantis’ Hispanic internment camp is also another abuse of human rights, where the government again tries to convince us that it is for our own good because it will make us safer.

The camp that Gov. DeSantis and his attorney general sidekick plopped down in the Everglades is an outlandish bait and switch – topped with shameful and disgusting hypocrisy.

The president is trying to convince us that mass deportations are necessary to rid the country of “alien” murderers and rapists. We now understand that he doesn’t mean criminals; he means anyone who isn’t fully authorized to be in the U.S. Even Gov. DeSantis talks about rounding up “the illegals.”

But those captured − at work or waiting for work, pulled off the streets or at their scheduled appointment with immigration and naturalization officials − aren’t the “worst of the worst.” Far from it. Most don’t even have an arrest record.

They are our lawn maintenance workers, the guys installing a new roof on our home, the health care workers caring for our elderly parents, the folks cleaning our bathrooms, and the people picking our fruits and vegetables.

Certainly, immigrants to this country, authorized or unauthorized, face deportation if found to have engaged in criminal activity. But there is this troublesome constitutional requirement called due process, which requires notice and the right to a fair hearing, that among other things is designed to prevent mistakes. Mistakes like falsely claiming that a tattoo or a baseball cap with an emblem is evidence of a gang membership or criminal activity.

The Trump/DeSantis program of mass deportations seems to be based on the presumption that the government − whose other programs are allegedly riddled with “waste, fraud, and abuse“ − can, nevertheless, execute a mistake-proof deportation program.

Aside from due process, there is the issue of race that embarrassed politicians struggle to avoid. Send in ICE, backed by the federalized National Guard, to terrorize the large immigrant population of Los Angeles; pick up Salvadoreans waiting for work in the Home Depot parking lot; arrest Guatemalan construction workers; detain Haitian hospital workers; and round up Venezuelan restaurant workers.

On the other hand, there’s room in America for Afrikaners from South Africa, the white minority of Dutch origin who claim they are being persecuted and subject to violence inflicted by the majority Black population. Trump even sent a chartered flight to facilitate their resettlement in communities across the country.

Gee, might racial preference, rather than the workforce needs of the country, be at play here?

The hypocrisy is also shameful and disgusting. I don’t know how these guys from the government are able to look at themselves in the mirror.

DeSantis and Trump are turning our country into a police state in order to round up those coming to America fleeing extreme poverty, violence and brutal dictatorships.

Like my grandfather (though from Czarist Russia), Trump’s grandfather came to America 140 years ago seeking refuge after violating the law of his home country that required three years of service in the German military.

Ron DeSantis’ great grandparents came from Italy 110 years ago seeking a better life for their children and their children’s children. His great-great grandmother miraculously evaded being barred from America as an "undesirable" immigrant because she was illiterate.

They were what Emma Lazarus’ poem described as among the “the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

History will judge DeSantis’ Hispanic internment camp as harshly as it has FDR’s Japanese internment camps – for which, four decades later, then-President Ronald Reagan issued an apology and compensation to the survivors.

The judgment of history, however, will not help those now being rounded up by Trump’s ICE agents and DeSantis’ posse.

When will France demand the return of the Statue of Liberty?

Howard Simon served as executive director of the ACLU of Florida from 1997-2018. He resides in Gainesville and is president of Clean Okeechobee Waters Foundation.