Camp Denial
August 1, 2025 – Opinion by DEC Vice Chair Dan Lack.
After the allies defeated the Nazis in World War II, German civilians denied any knowledge of the holocaust that was perpetrated in the concentration camps located in their towns. General Eisenhower ordered them to tour the liberated camps to see the cruelty for themselves.
Those brave American soldiers who liberated Europe from fascism are spinning in their graves after their descendants voted for and continue to support a U.S. government that is following a path similar to the Germans.
Governor DeSantis is spending 450 million of our tax dollars on what Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz described as an internment camp in the Everglades. These funds may or may not be reimbursed by the federal government. The Miami Herald found that 250 detainees there have not committed a crime, ICE placed a 15-year-old boy there.
This so-called Alligator Alcatraz has cages in leaky tents, each cage housing 32 inmates in the heat and humidity. Insect infestations have been reported. The Catholic Church is not allowed in to hold services, and Democratic state legislators filed a lawsuit after they were also denied access to the facility.
Inmate Michael Borrego filed suit due to the inhumane conditions there. He underwent surgery before he was abducted, and his surgical wound got infected after he was denied the antibiotics that were prescribed.
The GEO Group contributed $1 million to Trump’s MAGA super PAC, and $500,000 to his inaugural committee. Is it a coincidence that the GEO Group has signed contracts to rake in tens of millions of our tax dollars to operate ICE detention facilities?
Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Oztürk wrote about one such facility where she was incarcerated for 45 days in Louisiana after she was forced into an unmarked vehicle by masked gunmen on a street in Boston. She was denied access to her asthma medication and dietary-restricted food and feminine hygiene products. She was deprived of sleep due to the 24-hour per day bright flourescent lights.
At least 13 people have died in ICE detention. When our national nightmare is over, after Trump and DeSantis are gone, and investigations expose their regimes’ atrocities, don’t be like the Germans and pretend that you didn’t know.
— Dan Lack, Ocala