The Hispanic Democratic Council of Miami-Dade waited for President Donald Trump this Tuesday with a truck driving along Tamiami Trail from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, featuring a billboard that reads "Traitors."
The image accompanies photos of Trump himself, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the Republican congressmen from Florida: María Elvira Salazar, Mario Díaz-Balart, and Carlos Giménez, whom the Miami Democratic Hispanic Caucus accuses of betraying immigrants and the American dream.
The protest is taking place in the Everglades, the site of the inauguration of the new immigrant detention center Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, which President Trump is attending today.
"Trump and DeSantis are imprisoning immigrants in inhumane conditions without even guaranteeing them due process. A detention camp without due process is a concentration camp. We will not accept a concentration camp in our community," said Abel S. Delgado, president of the Hispanic Democratic Council of Miami-Dade.
“We support all legal and political efforts to block this atrocity against human rights. We will continue our
struggle to protect immigrants and American soil,” he insisted.
Additionally, it was noted that the inauguration is being used as a smokescreen to cover up the Medicaid scandal involving Governor Ron DeSantis, who just today is introducing a hundred new laws in Florida. Among them are two related to immigration: one that prohibits misleading advertising regarding immigration advice provided by individuals (notaries) who are not lawyers, and another that bans the use of makeshift vessels to transport migrants, specifically the rafts used by Cubans to reach the shores of the United States.
From the Democratic Caucus of Miami, they have explained, through a press release, that their protest is aimed at the opening of a detention center (the Alligator Alcatraz), which they consider to be a concentration camp where human rights will be violated.
In fact, the detention center will occupy the area where an airport runway was planned, an idea that was discarded due to the environmental impact of the project.
The Alligator Alcatraz detention center will open amid the turmoil affecting much of the Cuban community, which has been targeted by the immigration policies of the Trump Administration. Although there was talk during the election campaign of tightening immigration policies, many Trump voters believed that the crackdown would focus on those immigrants who have committed crimes in the United States.
The situation is that raids in homes and in court are being carried out against immigrants with I-220A and I-220B, with the former being detained and deported to Cuba, while the latter are also being deported. Additionally, those who entered with Humanitarian Parole and have been unable to benefit from the Adjustment Act, have seen their work permits revoked.
Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar promised to provide legal status to those with I-220A, but so far, she has not fulfilled her promise. She intends to do so through the Dignity Act, which, if passed in Congress, will not be realized in the short term. However, when she was in the opposition, she urged Alejandro Mayorkas to resolve this issue "in one fell swoop." The former Democratic Secretary of Homeland Security did not do so, just as María Elvira Salazar has been unable to get the current Republican Kristi Noem, head of DHS (Department of Homeland Security), to do it now.
The fact that the Supreme Court has given the green light to Trump to resume the deportation of migrants to third countries, has left many, particularly Cubans with an active deportation order (with I-220B), in uncertainty. If the Díaz-Canel regime does not accept them back, they could be sent to prisons in Sudan, as has already happened, or in El Salvador.
It's not the first time that the Miami Democratic Caucus has called Florida's Republican congressmen traitors. They previously did so with a controversial billboard placed right on the Palmetto Expressway in Miami, accusing them of not supporting the immigrant community in light of the harsh policies pushed by the Trump Administration.
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