Hidden deep in the Florida Everglades, there’s a migrant detention center where people are being held without trial. The facility is built on the site of an abandoned airport, surrounded by swamp, snakes, and alligators.
It’s blisteringly hot. The tents have no air conditioning.
That phrase makes many Americans bristle. We associate it with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust—and understandably so. The term is seared into our collective memory as something that represents the worst of humanity. But here’s the thing: concentration camps didn’t begin or end with the Nazis. The term has a longer history, and it has a specific meaning among scholars.
A concentration camp is a place where a government imprisons civilians or targeted groups without trial, often under harsh conditions, for purposes of control, punishment, or deterrence. It does not require mass extermination to meet the definition.
By that definition, the Florida facility—nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz” by the Trump administration for its remote, swampy location—qualifies.
Calling it a concentration camp is not hyperbole. It’s a description.
Consider the Facts
What makes people so resistant to the label isn’t that it’s inaccurate—it’s that it forces us to confront a painful truth: that a country we love is committing acts we associate with regimes we condemn.
But refusing to name it doesn’t make it any less real. In fact, euphemisms only help normalize injustice. History has shown us this time and time again.
We can argue over terminology, or we can look at the facts:
“What all concentration camps have in common is the removal of people from the normal rules of law and society.”
An Esquire article in 2019 quoted Pitzer, “The definition of that in my book is ‘mass detention of civilians without trial.’”
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And historian Waitman Wade Beorn added:
“Things can be concentration camps without being Dachau or Auschwitz. … Concentration camps, in general, have always been designed … to separate one group of people from another group.”
You don’t have to use the term “concentration camp” to care. But if the label bothers you more than the suffering, it’s worth asking why.
Don’t Look Away
Facing this reality is hard. But turning away would be a greater moral failure.
As you’ll see from the Instagram slides below, the challenge before us is great.
It’s going to be hard to overcome the years of anti-immigrant propaganda that self-serving politicians have used to scare voters. But here’s a place to start: let’s remind our fellow Americans of our nation’s founding ideals.
In the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers bravely signed their names to the following words:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
As Americans, we have held up the Declaration of Independence as a rallying point throughout our 249 years. While we’ve fallen short of these ideals many times, our nation has never disavowed them.
Now is the time to ask ourselves and our friends: Do we still agree with our founding document?
Are all people created equal?
Are we all endowed with certain unalienable rights?
If yes, then it’s time to stop debating vocabulary and start demanding accountability.
Let’s fight for the dignity and humanity of every person, no matter where they come from or how they got here.
That’s the American way.
What You Can Do?
You can make a difference on this issue. Consider these words from American author and activist Helen Keller:
“I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”
Here are five ways to get involved:
Call your members of Congress and demand the immediate closure of the “Alligator Alcatraz” concentration camp and other extrajudicial migrant detention sites.
Use your voice. Write letters to the editor, post on social media, and organize local events and demonstrations to raise awareness. Sharing factual information is a huge service; many of our neighbors don’t know what is happening.
Get involved at the local level. At Lenawee Indivisible, we’re working to defend democracy and hold elected officials accountable through non-violent, people-powered organizing. We’d love to have you join us.
Prepare to lead. Sign up for this Wednesday’s virtual One Million Rising training (8 p.m. EDT) hosted by Indivisible HQ. The goal is to train one million people this summer in strategic non-cooperation, as well as the basics of community organizing, so we can build a force bigger than fear and louder than hate.
History is watching. Let’s be on the right side of it.
About Lenawee Indivisible: Lenawee Indivisible is a grassroots organization dedicated to defending democracy, protecting voting rights, and holding elected officials accountable—in Lenawee County, MI, and beyond. We believe in informed civic engagement, inclusive communities, and building power through people. Learn how you can get involved.
