Miami Herald report on Alligator Alcatraz confirms what we suspected | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Miami Herald report reveals majority of detainees lack U.S. criminal records.
- Alligator Alcatraz houses asylum seekers and parolees in prison-like conditions.
- Editorial challenges political portrayal of detainees as violent criminals.
When the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times published a list Sunday of more than 700 detainees held at the Alligator Alcatraz detention facility in South Florida, it confirmed what many have suspected all along: Despite political claims to the contrary, many of the migrantsbeing detained have no U.S. criminal convictions or pending charges.
According to the list, published by the Herald/Times in an urgently needed act of watchdog journalism, more than 250 of the detainees have immigration violations but no criminal convictions or charges in the U.S. Some are asylum seekers. Others arrived under humanitarian parole, or thought they were here with permission awaiting the result of ongoing legal cases.
In other words, the portrayals by President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others that this detention center in the Everglades is a necessary tool for detaining “vicious” people and “deranged psychopaths” is a gross overstatement, underscoring the reasons that due process is so important.
No doubt there are some bad characters in the bunch. A third of the detainees on the list, which fluctuates as the population of the detention center changes, have various criminal convictions, the Herald/Times reported, with charges ranging from attempted murder and illegal re-entry to traffic violations. Hundreds of others only have pending charges.
But overall, the idea that more than a third of those being held had no pending U.S. charges or convictions should be chilling to Americans. Just how indiscriminate has the U.S. immigration system become?
Democratic and Republican members of Congress from Florida and state legislators were given a guided tour of the camp on Saturday, after several Democrats were initially turned away during an unannounced visit earlier in the week. Those on the tour came away with varying conclusions on the conditions, ranging from some Democrats characterizing it as an abomination while some Republicans said the air-conditioned facility meets all prison standards.
Conditions aside, the list published by the Herald offers some concrete information on who is being held at the detention center that cuts through the rhetoric surrounding Alligator Alcatraz, which is being run by Florida — the president’s home state — and paid for by taxpayers.
As Walter Jara, the nephew of a 56-year-old Nicaraguan man taken to the facility following a traffic stop in Palm Beach County, told the Herald: “That place is supposedly for the worst criminals in the U.S.” The list indicates that his uncle, Denis Alcides Solis Morales, has immigration violations but makes no mention of convictions or pending criminal charges. Jara said his uncle came to the U.S. legally in 2023 under a humanitarian parole program, and has a pending asylum case.
Are those people so dangerous that they should be housed in a place called Alligator Alcatraz?
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin insisted to reporters that the absence of a criminal charge in the U.S. doesn’t mean migrants have done nothing wrong. She said in a statement that some are “actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more” who “just don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S.” And, she added, “every single one of these individuals committed a crime when they came into this country illegally.”
Trump was elected promising to deport illegal immigrants who committed crimes. Once in office, he revoked Temporary Protected Status ( TPS) and humanitarian parole from thousands of people from places like Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti, effectively creating a whole new class of people without legal status.
According to polls, Americans overwhelmingly support deporting immigrants with violent criminal records. But the Herald/Times findings reveal a broader dragnet at work — one that ensnares farm workers, people stopped for traffic violations and those who simply attend their immigration hearings. In our state, they are being rounded up with the same zeal used for violent offenders.
If we are holding undocumented people in an isolated camp who have no charges or convictions in the U.S., that’s a moral and legal failure.
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This story was originally published July 14, 2025 at 1:16 PM.