Trump tours Florida immigration lockup and jokes about escapees having to run from alligators

President Donald Trump toured a new immigration detention centre surrounded by alligator-filled swamps in the Florida Everglades, suggesting it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration races to expand the infrastructure necessary for increasing deportations.

- GNS News Agency, july10

Mr. Trump said he'd like to see similar facilities in “really, many states” and raised the prospect of also deporting U.S. citizens. He even endorsed having Florida National Guard forces possibly serve as immigration judges to ensure migrants are ejected from the country even faster.“Pretty soon, this facility will handle the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet,” Mr. Trump said of the Florida site known as “Alligator Alcatraz."

The President said the moniker is “very appropriate because I looked outside and that's not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon."“The only way out, really, is deportation,” Mr. Trump added.Hundreds of protesters converged outside the site — a remote airstrip with tents and trailers. They waved signs calling for the humane treatment of migrants as well as the protection of the expansive preserve that is home to a few Native American tribes and many endangered animal species. The White House has delighted in the area's remoteness — about 50 miles (80 kilometres) west of Miami — and the fact that it is teeming with pythons and alligators. It hopes to convey a message to detainees and the rest of the world that repercussions will be severe if the immigration laws of the United States are not followed.Before arriving, Mr. Trump even joked of migrants being held there, “We're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison.”