The MAGA movement is reveling in the creativity, severity and accelerating force of President Trump's historic immigration crackdown.The breathing gets especially heavy when the discussion turns to the new detention facility in Florida:
... Once-fringe tactics — an alligator-moated detention camp, deportations to war zones, denaturalization of immigrant citizens — are now being proudly embraced at the highest levels of the U.S. government.
It's an extraordinary shift from Trump's first term, when nationwide backlash and the appearance of cruelty forced the administration to abandon its family separation policy for unauthorized immigrants.
Driving the news: Trump on Tuesday toured a temporary ICE facility in the Florida Everglades dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," where thousands of migrants will be detained in a remote, marshland environment teeming with predators.I get the feeling that Trumpworld sees the facility as an 80-20 issue in their favor -- of course Americans will revel in the idea of detainees being surrounded by deadly predators! -- because Republicans find the idea unusually delightful. But if the first polling on it is credible, the facility isn't popular:
MAGA influencers invited on the trip gleefully posted photos of the prison's cages and souvenir-style "merchandise," thrilling their followers and horrifying critics.
Pro-Trump activist Laura Loomer drew outrage after tweeting that "alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now" — widely interpreted as a reference to the Hispanic population of the United States.
If the numbers are right, only 26% of independents approve of the facility (while 53% disapprove).
And younger people are particularly skeptical.
No surprise there. Young people -- and I think this includes the podcast bros who voted for Trump -- a far more accepting of a multi-ethnic America than their elders, and thus don't automatically respond well (as many old people do) to the idea of darker-skinned immigrants being detained in these dangerous and dehumanizing conditions. Joe Rogan, who connects with the bros even though he's not young himself, has criticized the Trump crackdown, on the grounds that most of the detainees are just people trying to earn a dollar:
Joe Rogan: "It's insane. The targeting of migrant workers, not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers. Just construction workers showing up on construction sites and raiding them." pic.twitter.com/r04H8zA2hk
— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) July 3, 2025
I also believe that Lock lawbreakers up in the most dehumanizing conditions imaginable is a policy idea that appeals much more to older Americans than younger Americans. Older people lived through the high-crime era that ended in the early 1990s, and many of us bought the argument that the solution to crime was extraordinarily long sentences and brutal supermaxes.
To younger Americans, I suspect that the Florida facility seems baroque and absurd, more like an incarceration site in a torture-porn movie than an appropriate place for the government to detain people. Are wise adults actually solving problems here, or are they just doing this because it's sick fun for them? And are we really doing this to people because they're undocumented gardeners or construction workers, while child molesters and murderers are in normal prisons?
It's quite possible that Trumpworld doesn't care what the public thinks, as long as the MAGA base is (deliriously) happy and the policy doesn't make voters angry enough to reject the GOP. But Democrats should do further assessments of public opinion on this subject. Like the roundups, the facility might really look like the wrong remedy aimed at the wrong people. Democrats might be able to take advantage of that.