They’re out there, deep in the Florida Everglades every Sunday evening—rain or shine—holding signs, singing songs, and praying.
Since it opened at the beginning of July, Florida’s migrant detention center dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" has sparked a slew of controversy surrounding its existence, including multiple lawsuits from environmental and civil rights groups seeking to shutter the detention camp.
With pending legal challenges and now a government shutdown, the future of the controversial facility remains uncertain.
But one thing has been constant: Florida faith leaders have shown up week-after-week throughout it all.
They’re called the Florida Interfaith Coalition and are a growing group of clergy and activists organizing across the state to protest Alligator Alcatraz, the $608 million detention center funded by the U.S. federal government and run by the state of Florida housing more than 1,800 men.
Since the beginning of August, the faith leaders have been hosting weekly prayer vigils outside the detention center to raise awareness about the conditions of the facility and protest immigration policies that they believe are not only immoral, but against God’s will.
Their efforts have attracted more than 2,000 people in Florida alone and spurred new vigils across the state protesting similar detention sites, organizers say.
Their goal is twofold: halt operations at Alligator Alcatraz and, while it is open, let clergy inside to provide religious counsel to detainees.
“We, across faiths, believe that this is opposed to what God would like us to live together as. Human rights are important, and we may not be able to do a lot, but we’re here, and we care, and that has power in itself,” said Rev. Candace “Candy” Thomas of Christ Congregational United Church of Christ in Palmetto Bay, just south of Miami.
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“We don’t know what the outcome will be, but we know what we can do, even though it just seems like a little. There’s comfort in being together in community doing that,” she said.
The faith leaders, who come from various denominations—from the United Methodist Church to Unitarian Universalism to Judaism—have vowed to show up every week as long as people are being detained at the center.
“Those are our brothers. Those are our fellow citizens. Many of them have no charges, have done nothing wrong and committed no crimes,” said Rev. Arthur Jones III, minister at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fort Myers, at a Sunday vigil.
Shortly after his speech, Jones led the crowd of some 50 people in a rendition of “We Shall Overcome,” a song popularized by leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.
“We’re here to pray, we’re here to chant, we’re here to sing. We are here to let them know that they are not forgotten that they are loved, that they are respected,” Jones said.
Far from easy-breezy activism
The vigils are peaceful prayer circles led by a different Florida pastor each week and are open to anyone, regardless of their faith. The speakers offer special sermons dedicated to detainees, testimonies from family members of people being detained or personal stories.
Thomas, for example, recently spoke about her Colombian friend who was picked up by immigration or ICE agents in South Beach. The friend had legal citizenship, but was still transferred to four different detention facilities, ultimately being released in Arizona when all was said in done. The woman ended up losing her job and her apartment as a result of the arrest.
At the height of the vigils, there were 300 people, according to organizers, but attendance dipped after the center was ordered by a federal judge to slowly empty the facility in August.
The decision was short-lived. Soon after, an appeals court paused the decision in September, leaving the facility open for the time being. And the vigils ramped up again.
Though the results are marginal so far, organizers hope that the vigils can help spotlight the “inhumane conditions” of the center and slowly influence the wider public, said Noelle Damico, one of the vigil’s core organizers and director of social justice at The Worker’s Circle, a culturally Jewish nonprofit that advocates on social justice issues. The group has socialist origins but has declared since 1929 that members are explicitly anti-communist.
The impact is hard to measure, as there’s no way to know for sure if protests impact public opinion or the courts in charge of the center’s fate.
Over the summer, as immigration policies quickly began changing in the United States, the folks at The Worker’s Circle were looking to get involved in a more meaningful way.
Damico said she called a few local pastors and environmental activist and Miccosukee member Betty Osceola to start planning the vigils. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians and environmental advocacy group the Friends of the Everglades filed an early lawsuit that resulted in halting the construction of Alligator Alcatraz, arguing that the facility harms the fragile ecosystem of the Everglades.
Osceola had already been organizing protests of her own across from the center and was vital to sustaining the weekly protests, said organizers. She lent tents, sound equipment and initially, a camera set-up to help livestream the protests. On social media, Osceola promotes the vigils every week, describing them succinctly in one post: “Think Sunday church service in the Everglades.”
“I’m a very spiritual person. I pray every day,” Osceola said at last week’s vigil.
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Due to the remote conditions of the center—located at an isolated Everglades airfield surrounded by mosquito and alligator-filled swamps—Damico said she wasn’t sure if people would show up to the first one, let alone week after week.
“This isn’t easy, Saturday afternoon activism. This is, you gotta make a plan, you gotta commit,” Damico said.
Soon after the start of the vigils, more and more faith leaders began showing up, many bussing their congregants to come along with them from places as far as North and Central Florida.
Now, they’ve expanded across the state, mobilizing more than 150 faith leaders and attracting thousands of people in Florida alone. The movement is inspiring vigils in Tallahassee, the state capital, and in Sarasota on the west coast and in Orlando, home to Disneyworld.
The Alligator Alcatraz protests have also inspired other states protesting similar camps, such as Deportation Depot near Jacksonville in Florida, the Louisiana Lockup, and the Speedway Slammer in Indiana, which appear to be modeled after Alligator Alcatraz in terms of their state/federal partnerships. The rapid expansion is a fact that Damico finds troubling.
“You have this vague state/federal government cooperation going on. But it doesn’t have any of the protocols that federal detention centers, she said. “The blueprint is horrible.”
Clergy request access to migrants
In addition to the interfaith group, the Catholic Church has also been involved in pushing back on President Donald Trump's immigration policies. Archbishop Thomas Wenski, Miami’s top Catholic leader, condemned Alligator Alcatraz earlier this year calling it “alarming” and “unbecoming of public officials.”
Catholic and Jesuit organizations have shown up at the Krome Detention Center in Miami to pray for detainees, an action that was a part of a larger day of prayer vigils, organized by Catholic groups across the country.
In addition to the protests, faith leaders a part of the coalition have also been seeking direct access to detainees. The group sent a letter to the Florida Department of Emergency Management (FDEM) seeking permission from the state to provide one-on-one chaplaincy services at the detention center, a practice that’s common in most other correctional facilities in Florida.
When they didn’t hear back, except for a vague promise to forward the email along, leaders hand-delivered another letter to FDEM’s office in Tallahassee, Florida’s state capital. The response that time was more promising, but the faith leaders still haven’t heard back about whether they are allowed inside.
“As clergy, we take a sacred vow to support all people with spiritual care, regardless of their race, of their nationality, of their religion or their legal status,” Rev. David Williamson told the Miami Herald previously. “It’s a matter of recognizing someone’s constitutional right to receive this kind of care based on the First Amendment.”
READ MORE: Chicago Faith Communities Say ‘Joy’ Is Key to Resisting the Feds
As of now, the Catholic Church is the only faith denomination that has been granted access inside Alligator Alcatraz to hold mass for detainees and staff.
The Herald asked the FDEM about the detention center’s chaplaincy policy multiple times, but they did not respond to request for comment for this story.
At the weekly Miami vigils, the treatment of the migrants held across the street is often a topic of discussion. Organizers point to reporting detailing the poor treatment of detainees and that hundreds of people went unaccounted for after leaving the facility.
“This is not American,” said Michael Finkel, a Unitarian Universalist from Naples, on Sunday after the vigil. “What’s wrong is the way the people are being held, if they are in cages ... The fact that they don’t have due process, there should be no deportation without legal representation.”
The clergy also not that not all migrants being detained are criminals nor illegal immigrants. Kim Torres from the United Methodist Church in Florida City says someone she knew who had a legal permit was picked up at their immigration appointment and deported to Mexico.
“I think it’s people of faith that we have to fight that if we believe it’s unjust ... we need to do something. And especially as a Christian, I think right now, there’s all these voices from Christians who I don’t believe represent Jesus.”
Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has repeatedly rejected the reports of poor treatment of detainees, and the Department of Homeland Security maintains that Alligator Alcatraz houses “some of the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens including murderers, pedophiles, weapon traffickers, and drug dealers,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in September.
“We’re here to pray, we’re here to chant, we’re here to sing. We are here to let them know that they are not forgotten that they are loved, that they are respected.” —Rev. Arthur Jones III, minister at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fort Myers
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