Miami archbishop condemns Florida detention center known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
Florida’s most senior Catholic leader, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, has condemned the new immigration detention center at Dade-Collier airport, officially known as “Alligator Alcatraz”, in an impassioned statement posted on the archdiocese of Miami’s website.
Wenski is a multilingual Florida native, described in an archdiocese biography as “the blond, blue-eyed son of Polish immigrants, he speaks Spanish like a Cuban, Creole like a Haitian and, ironically, only ‘limited’ Polish”.
After expressing sympathy for the goal of removing criminals from the United States, Wenski argued that “most immigrants are hardworking and honest and only want to build a hopeful future for themselves and their families”.
He went on to note that the US faces labor shortages in areas that are staffed by immigrants, including healthcare and agriculture. “Rather than spending billions to deport people who are already contributing positively to our nation’s well-being, it would be more financially sensible and more morally acceptable for Congress, working with the Administration, to expand legal pathways for non-criminal migrants to adjust to a permanent legal status,” the archbishop wrote.
“It is alarming to see enforcement tactics that treat all irregular immigrants as dangerous criminals,” Wenski added. “Masked, heavily armed agents who do not identify themselves during enforcement activities are surprising – so is the apparent lack of due process in deportation proceedings in recent months.”
“Along these lines, much of the current rhetoric is obviously intentionally provocative,” the cleric added. “It is unbecoming of public officials and corrosive of the common good to speak of the deterrence value of ‘alligators and pythons’ at the Collier-Dade facility. Common decency requires that we remember the individuals being detained are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters of distressed relatives. …
“We also raise concerns about the isolation of the detention facility, which is far from medical care centers, and the precariousness of the temporary ‘tent’ structures in the Florida heat and summer thunderstorms, not to mention the challenge of safely protecting detainees in the event of a hurricane,” Wenski continued.
The archbishop, who once spent a summer in Haiti learning Creole and devoted 18 years of his career to working with Miami’s Haitian community, also wrote in support of Haitians, Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans who have lived in the US legally with temporary protected status that the administration is now stripping away.
Key events
A press release sent to reporters from the office of the first lady, Melania Trump, about her visit to meet grieving families and first responders highlights the fact that her husband, Donald Trump, praised her in his remarks.
The press release describes their visit and then says, in its second paragraph (with bold lettering in the original):
During a roundtable discussion with emergency personnel and Texas leaders, President Trump acknowledged the First Lady’s compassionate leadership, saying: “We have a wonderful First Lady. She’s done a great job as First Lady, and she’s a very special woman. When she saw and met the people that we met just a little while ago. It’s very devastating.”
Hours after Donald Trump insisted that officials involved in the response to the deadly flooding in Texas on the Fourth of July were entirely blameless, the New York Times reports that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) failed to answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line placed by survivors on 6 July.
The agency, which still lacks a confirmed leader, had fired hundreds of contractors at call centers on 5 July because Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, failed to renew their contracts, according to documents seen by the Times.
Noem, who rushed to Texas to be the public face of the Trump administration’s response, introduced a new rule that she must personally approve any expense over $100,000. She did not renew the contracts until Thursday, leaving Fema call centers short-staffed for the first five days after the disaster.
Miami archbishop condemns Florida detention center known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
Florida’s most senior Catholic leader, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, has condemned the new immigration detention center at Dade-Collier airport, officially known as “Alligator Alcatraz”, in an impassioned statement posted on the archdiocese of Miami’s website.
Wenski is a multilingual Florida native, described in an archdiocese biography as “the blond, blue-eyed son of Polish immigrants, he speaks Spanish like a Cuban, Creole like a Haitian and, ironically, only ‘limited’ Polish”.
After expressing sympathy for the goal of removing criminals from the United States, Wenski argued that “most immigrants are hardworking and honest and only want to build a hopeful future for themselves and their families”.
He went on to note that the US faces labor shortages in areas that are staffed by immigrants, including healthcare and agriculture. “Rather than spending billions to deport people who are already contributing positively to our nation’s well-being, it would be more financially sensible and more morally acceptable for Congress, working with the Administration, to expand legal pathways for non-criminal migrants to adjust to a permanent legal status,” the archbishop wrote.
“It is alarming to see enforcement tactics that treat all irregular immigrants as dangerous criminals,” Wenski added. “Masked, heavily armed agents who do not identify themselves during enforcement activities are surprising – so is the apparent lack of due process in deportation proceedings in recent months.”
“Along these lines, much of the current rhetoric is obviously intentionally provocative,” the cleric added. “It is unbecoming of public officials and corrosive of the common good to speak of the deterrence value of ‘alligators and pythons’ at the Collier-Dade facility. Common decency requires that we remember the individuals being detained are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters of distressed relatives. …
“We also raise concerns about the isolation of the detention facility, which is far from medical care centers, and the precariousness of the temporary ‘tent’ structures in the Florida heat and summer thunderstorms, not to mention the challenge of safely protecting detainees in the event of a hurricane,” Wenski continued.
The archbishop, who once spent a summer in Haiti learning Creole and devoted 18 years of his career to working with Miami’s Haitian community, also wrote in support of Haitians, Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans who have lived in the US legally with temporary protected status that the administration is now stripping away.
Interim summary
Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, are now on board Air Force One en route to New Jersey after their visit to observe recovery efforts in Kerrville, Texas, where more than 120 people were killed in flooding in the Fourth of July disaster, and more than 170 remain missing.
Here is an overview of the visit:
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The Trumps were greeted in Kerrville by Texas governor Greg Abbott and received a briefing on the recovery effort, including Kerr county sheriff Larry Leitha and W Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas division of emergency management.
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They then sat down for a televised roundtable discussion about the emergency response that featured comments from the president and the first lady, as well as from the governor and homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, whose presence masked the absence of a confirmed administrator of Fema, the federal emergency management agency Noem and Trump have pledged to eliminate. Both of Texas’s Republican senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, also took part, as did Republican representative Chip Roy, who represents the area.
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During the roundtable, Trump asked one of his invited guests, Phil McGraw, the former daytime talkshow host known as Dr Phil, to share some “words of wisdom”.
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Soon after he opened the floor to questions from reporters, Trump called a correspondent for a local Texas broadcaster “very evil” for asking him what he would say to grieving families who say that their loved ones could still be alive if officials had warned them of the potential for catastrophic flooding. He then took questions from a series of correspondents for partisan outlets that support him, starting with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriend.
The roundtable was notable for its resemblance at times to one of Trump’s campaign events, given that most of the participants he invited to speak were careful to praise him and that he insisted, again and again, that all of the Republican local, state and federal officials had acted admirably and any criticism of their efforts was despicable.
Farm worker dies of injuries sustained during immigration raid in California, union says
A farm worker “has died of injuries they sustained as a result of yesterday’s immigration enforcement action” in Ventura county, California, the United Farm Workers union said in a statement posted on social media on Friday afternoon.
Federal immigration officers, supported by national guard troops, raided two licensed, legal cannabis farms in Carpinteria and Camarillo on Thursday, arresting about 200 people they said were suspected of lacking legal status to live and work in the United States. Hundreds of protesters who gathered to oppose the raids were later attacked by the officers with chemical munitions.
Earlier on Friday, the union reported that “farm workers were critically injured yesterday during chaotic raids in Ventura County”.
“Many workers-including US citizens, were held by federal authorities at the farm for 8 hours or more. US citizen workers report only being released after they were forced to delete photos and videos of the raid from their phones,” the union wrote.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union statement added. “There is no city, state or federal district where it is legal to terrorize and detain people for being brown and working in agriculture. These raids must stop immediately.”
Trump departs scene of deadly flooding in Texas, having praised local and state officials
Donald Trump and his wife Melania have now left Kerrville, Texas, after completing a roundtable discussion with officials involved in the recovery effort in Kerrville, Texas, which also featured what the president called some “words of wisdom” from Phil McGraw, the former daytime talkshow host known as Dr Phil whose pro-Trump cable network just declared bankruptcy.
The Trumps are now en route by helicopter back to Kelly Field airbase in San Antonio where they will board Air Force One.
According to the pool reporter traveling with them, the president and first lady walked along a rope line of dozens of emergency workers before they left Kerrville.
“This is as tough as we’ve seen,” Trump told the first responders. “The governor is doing a very good job, you’re doing a phenomenal job and we appreciate it,” he added.
Those remarks summed up the message that the president repeated again and again throughout the visit. Everyone, he said, had done a great job and no one in elected office could be blamed remotely for the scores of deaths from the catastrophic flooding.
Those talking points, and Trump’s unwillingness to even answer a question about why so many people in harm’s way had received no emergency warning in advance of the flood waters sweeping them away, oddly echoed the confident assertion a former president, George W Bush, made two decades ago in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, before its deadly toll was clear.
Speaking on 2 September 2005 in Mobile, Alabama, then president Bush effusively praised the response led by Fema director Michael Brown. “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” Bush told him. “The Fema director” and his staff, the president added, as other officials burst into applause “are working 24 hours a day”.
Brown resigned 10 days later and Bush’s praise for the failed federal response was widely ridiculed, including by Will Ferrell in a segment of the comedian’s later one-man show about Bush’s failed presidency.
Trump calls reporter ‘evil’ for asking about lack of warnings ahead of flood
Donald Trump berated a CBS News Texas reporter who said that families of the dead are saying that their loved ones could have been saved had emergency warnings gone out before the flooding. “What do you say to those families?” the reporter asked the president.
“Well, I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances,” Trump said with a shrug of his shoulders. He then suggested that the severity of the flooding was unforeseeable and said he had only “admiration” for the local officials.
“Only a bad person would ask a question like that, to be honest with you. I don’t know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that,” Trump said. “I think this has been heroism. This has been incredible, the job you’ve all done.
“It’s easy to sit back and say, ‘Oh, what could’ve happened here”, Trump added in a mocking tone.
The president then turned to ask for a question from a more friendly corespondent, calling on Brian Glenn, who covers the White House for the pro-Trump network Real America’s Voice, and is the boyfriend of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Republican congresswoman from Georgia.
“Brian, go ahead please,” the president said.
Glenn’s question on who had first alerted Trump to the disaster was followed by a comment from the correspondent who said that as a native Texan he had received hundreds of messages thanking Trump for his response. Glenn mentioned that he had already told this to the president, referring to having made the same statement earlier this week during a televised cabinet meeting, but said he wanted to repeat it to make sure everyone in the room had heard it. “Thank you on behalf of Texas,” Glenn concluded.
“Thank you very much.” Trump said. “Well that’s a nice reporter.”
A short time later, another pro-Trump correspondent used the opportunity to further politicize the event by asking Trump to comment on the criticism of the disaster response from “ghouls on the left like Jasmine Crockett”, in reference to the Texas congresswoman who has recently been leading Republican senator John Cornyn in polls ahead of his race for re-election next year.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that the federal government’s emergency declaration of a major disaster was the fastest he was aware of, addressing a round table of local officials about flooding in Kerrville.
“Whenever there’s a disaster or catastrophe, the first thing we focus on is saving lives, prioritizing those lives every minute,” Abbott said, “Every hour counts.”
Trumpcriticized the previous administration’s response to Hurricane Helene in his remarks while praising Fema’s current leadership. Notably, requests for federal assistance in western North Carolina have been denied under the Trump administration.
Abbott cited the response by the Coast Guard in Texas, “literally saving lives right and left”. Abbott said he was committed to long-term recovery for the community. “We’re here for the long run, to maintain our operations to search and find everybody that we can, as well as ensure that we’re going to rebuild this community … not just to rebuild, but to rebuild in a better way.
He noted that the Texas legislature would reconvene in 10 days.
In rare public comments, First Lady Melania Trump expressed her sympathy with flood victims at a round table in Kerrville, Texas.
“All parents lost beautiful young souls. Sympathy from all of us to the community, to everybody who lost a loved one. We are grieving with you. Our nation is grieving with you. We just met with the wonderful families. We pray with them. We hug. We hold hands. They share the stories.”
Melania Trump said she was there to honor lost lives.
“And I will be back. I promise to them. I just pray for them and am giving them my strength and love.”
Trump likens flooding to ‘giant wave … best surfers in the world would be afraid to surf’
Donald Trump praised law enforcement officers and first responders to deadly flooding in Texas while holding a roundtable discussion in Kerrville with administration leaders and local officials.
“Every American should be inspired by what has taken place,” Trump said. The president said he had spent time speaking with people in the community who have been affected by the flooding.
“All across the country, Americans hearts are shattered,” Trump said. “We’re filled with grief and devastation, the loss of life, and unfortunately, they’re still looking. They’re still looking. There’s a lot of missing children, possibly, mostly, we don’t know, but they’re still looking, and they’ll find everybody. But it’s not an easy thing.”
Trump likened the flooding to “a giant, giant wave in the Pacific Ocean that the best surfers in the world would be afraid to surf”.
