There are moments in a nation’s history when silence becomes complicity. This is one of them.
Alligator Alcatraz—whatever euphemism officials might use for it—is a stain on this country’s conscience. Detaining families and children in isolated, prison-like conditions does not reflect strength, justice, or national security. It reflects cruelty. It reflects fear. And it reflects a dangerous slide toward policies that dehumanize rather than protect.
My family fled the Bolsheviks. We fought fascism. We bore the weight of loved ones lost to anti-Semitism and totalitarianism. We know exactly what it looks like when a government begins separating people into camps, when whole populations are treated as problems to be managed instead of human beings deserving dignity and due process. We’ve seen the outcome of propaganda that paints refugees and migrants as threats, and we carry the trauma of knowing what happens when the world looks away.
That’s why I cannot, and will not, stay silent while a facility like Alligator Alcatraz continues to operate under the flag of the United States. It is not just a policy failure—it is a moral catastrophe. No child belongs behind razor wire. No family deserves to be locked away simply for seeking safety or opportunity. This isn’t immigration policy. It’s punishment by design, and it has no place in a nation that claims to value freedom and human rights.
This country has learned these lessons before—through the internment of Japanese Americans, through the rejection of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust, through every moment when we failed to live up to the ideals etched into our Constitution. We cannot afford to learn them again through the suffering of yet another generation.
I demand the immediate closure of Alligator Alcatraz and any facility like it. Invest instead in humane, community-based alternatives that respect international law and basic human dignity. Anything less is a betrayal—not just of those being held today, but of everything we claim to stand for.
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