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Independence Day occurs as this imperfect union, publicly declared on July 4, 1776, faces an existential threat. President Donald Trump daily amasses more authoritarian control, unchecked by the Republican majority in Congress and the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority. Mass arrests and deportations of immigrants accelerate, sweeping up alongside them many legal residents and even U.S. citizens. Trump is now considering "denaturalizing" citizens, stripping people of their citizenship to deport them if they don't behave according to his whims. In this ongoing cascade of disturbing and often illegal actions, Trump's ability to shock seems boundless. This week he toured a new tent prison being hastily built in the Everglades by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and State Attorney General James Uthmeier. They dub the gulag "Alligator Alcatraz."

Outside the White House Wednesday morning, as Trump set out for Florida, Fox News White House reporter Peter Doocy asked him, "With Alligator Alcatraz, is the idea that if some illegal immigrant escapes, they just get eaten by an alligator or snake?"

Trump responded, smiling: "You know, snakes are fast. But alligators, we're gonna teach them [ICE prisoners] how to run away from an alligator, OK? If they escape prison, how to run away: Don't run in a straight line, run like this," Trump said, moving his hand in a zigzag path. "And you know what? Your chances go up about one percent. Not a good day!"

Trump continued, "You have a lot of bodyguards, you have a lot of cops, that are in the form of alligators. You don't have to pay them so much."

Trump's tent prison photo op was another racist display of anti-immigrant hatred and inhumanity, mocking the marginalized for the cameras and his loyal base.

Florida is building the prison on the grounds of an unused airstrip. DeSantis, speaking at a "roundtable" hosted by the White House on the prison grounds, boasted that the site was ideal for the mass deportation of immigrants: "You drive them 2,000 feet to the runway, and then they're gone. It's a one-stop shop."

Meanwhile, protesters picketed outside, representing environmentalists, immigrants rights activists, and the land's original stewards, the indigenous Miccosukee and Seminole tribes.

One careful observer of this atrocious new Everglades concentration camp is Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. He said on the Democracy Now! news hour:

"'Alligator Alcatraz,' it's a public relations name. Alcatraz was a prison for people who had been convicted of crimes and were serving their sentence. But immigration detention is not for people serving criminal sentences. The people held in detention often have no criminal record, or they have minor, lower misdemeanors. ... The Trump administration loves to say that it's only going after the worst of the worst, but when they sent hundreds of people to Guantanamo Bay, fully a third of them had no criminal convictions at all. We've seen with their deportation of people to CECOT in El Salvador to be imprisoned without trial, that hundreds of those people were likely innocent of any claimed gang ties and had no criminal records at all. So, this is not Alcatraz. It's a detention camp that ICE is using to hold immigrants, many of whom will likely have no criminal record."

Florida Attorney General Uthmeier, a staunch Trump supporter who first touted the propagandistic name, is selling "Alligator Alcatraz" merchandise on his campaign website.

Florida has more than alligators, pythons and elected officials thrilled by cruel and unusual punishment; it is also where five of this year's 13 reported ICE detention deaths have occurred. The Republican budget bill promises a gusher of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to supercharge the immigrant detention and deportation industry, ensuring the construction of many more ICE jails and tent prison complexes, thus guaranteeing more deaths in detention.

As the grim Everglades prison construction continues, Americans across the country celebrate the nation's birthday. Most who celebrate the Declaration of Independence have never read the short document. If they were to read it, one line should stand out as especially relevant, given Trump's thirst for power and the willingness of so many to cede it to him:

"A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

The Declaration of Independence is an imperfect document, referring, for example, to the indigenous people of this continent as "savages," and failing to reject, or even to mention, the institution of slavery. Indeed, roughly one-third of its 55 signers were enslavers themselves. But the Declaration is clear in its rejection of kings, tyrants and arbitrary power.

"No Kings" protests against Trump's unprecedented power grab continue to grow. Millions took to the streets on his birthday last month. The next major mobilization is planned for July 17.

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Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,400 stations. She is the co-author, with Denis Moynihan and David Goodman, of the New York Times best-seller "Democracy Now!: 20 Years Covering the Movements Changing America."

(c) 2025 Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

Distributed by King Features Syndicate