Richard Luscombe , The Guardian; The protesters showing up every week to shut down ‘Alligator Alcatraz’: ‘We will end this’
"They come on buses, in cars and RVs. Some ride on motorcycles. Every Sunday afternoon, convoys of protesters from all over Florida, and others from out of state, descend on the notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail in the Everglades to stand vigil for those held inside.
It is a ritual that began in August, a month after the opening of the remote detention camp celebrated by Donald Trump for its harsh conditions, and hailed by Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, as a model for the president’s aggressive detention and deportation agenda.
The open air vigils continued, and grew in size, through the brutal heat and torrential rains of the south Florida summer. They endured through a federal judge’s order in August that “Alligator Alcatraz” should close, and a subsequent reversal by an appeals court; the protesters’ voices grew louder at alleged human rights abuses and violence inflicted on detainees.
Over the holiday season, thousands more people are expected to join the protests. The Guardian spoke to several people at the heart of the vigils:..
The pastor
As pastor of the Allendale United Methodist church in St Petersburg, Andy Oliver has never been afraid of diving into political issues. The treatment of detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz”, he said, compelled him to organize a bus to attend the vigils, and he was encouraged that other locals joined his parishioners to make their voices heard.
“We filled up the bus and had to rent a couple more vehicles. We had so many people wanting to be there,” he said.
Oliver sees parallels at the immigration jail with the religious stories he preaches.
“In the Christmas story, the person who came to announce Jesus’s arrival was his cousin John the Baptist, and he was pretty quickly thrown in jail for calling for liberation,” he said.
“Jesus came to bring liberation to people. We have people that are physically being detained even beyond the scope of what the law allows, families are being separated, harms are being done. Jesus was born as a refugee. He spent most of his ministry with people on the margins. I think that’s where Jesus would be, he’d be calling for these prisons to be emptied.”
Oliver said the diversity of the vigil crowd was notable, and that it was “powerful” to share the experience with people of different faiths."
