Voices of the Families of People Detained, Tortured Immigrants at Alligator Alcatraz, together with Faith and Community Allies, Turn the Tide at Illegal Everglades Detention Center Alligator Alcatraz
More than 40 straight weeks of freedom vigil protests, congressional testimony, and tireless media efforts by families and allies cast stark light on shameful abuse of, discrimination against immigrants.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 12, 2026
Media Contact: The TASC Group
Email: workerscircle@thetascgroup.com, 347-901-9352
NEW YORK – May 12, 2026: The reported plan to close Alligator Alcatraz is the most profound victory for democracy by a popular movement of human rights defenders since the dark days of the Trump Administration began.
The Workers Circle, families whose loved ones have been detained, and ordinary people of conscience and faith have held weekly freedom vigils for more than 8 months that have made Alligator Alcatraz politically toxic, continuously raising its moral and financial cost until it has now become politically untenable to continue operations. “We’re seeing the defeat of the Trump and DeSantis Administrations’ ‘jewel in the crown of government-sponsored cruelty,’ and its blueprint for mass detention and terror targeting immigrants of all statuses in real time, said Ann Toback, CEO of the Workers Circle. “And it is an astonishing feat and testament to the power of the human spirit and the will of the people.”
The Workers Circle, a national Jewish social justice organization, initiated these weekly freedom vigils in August 2025 and has organized them continuously since, drawing together Florida interfaith leaders, immigrant rights activists, democracy advocates, and concerned citizens in a powerful, ongoing moral witness to the inhumanity, corruption, and cruelty of its eponymous name. This no-frills vigils campaign mounted on a shoestring budget funded by countless, everyday people, and supported week after week by local leaders and organizations of conscience and faith who brought their creativity, traditions, and courage to bear, received the result that has reverberated throughout the nation.
Noelle Damico, Director of Social Justice at the Workers Circle, who spearheaded the freedom vigil strategy and organizing said, “We decided, this cannot become America. The only option was to fight this detention center, to shine a light on its brutality, demand its closure, and end the abduction, detention, disappearance, and deportation of our neighbors, family members, and friends. And this is just the beginning because these detention centers are multiplying across the nation — but so are we.” The vigil at Alligator Alcatraz has already catalyzed 18 vigils across the nation as people inspired by the vigil and with the support of the Workers Circle, have created their own local coalitions and are leading regular freedom vigils outside detention centers, ICE Courts, county jails, and other sites of harm. Dozens more freedom vigils are currently in planning and a Freedom Vigils Movement call will be held on Thursday, May 18 by the Workers Circle to equip and expand vigils across the nation. This virtual event is co-sponsored by MoveOn, Voto Latino, Coalition on Human Needs, Faithful America, Sojourner’s and many other organizations.
Last week, when talks to close Alligator Alcatraz were first reported, Damico shared the following statement:
“Alligator Alcatraz is too expensive and its cost is both financial and moral. It is immoral, inhumane and un-American. It is also a blueprint for detention across the nation. If this center is finally closed, our nation must end the replication of this model elsewhere and a full investigation must be undertaken into the corruption, abuse, and profiteering that has happened so that appropriate authorities are held accountable."
Since vigils began in the Everglades on August 3, 2025, more than 5,000 people have come to that sandy patch of soil on Route 41 across from the main entrance where an official sign cruelly proclaims “Alligator Alcatraz” with anywhere from 100-300 people in attendance each week. People travel a minimum of an hour and a half each way, deep into the heart of the Everglades to be present. Many drive 4-5 hours or even more from Tampa, Orlando and beyond. The Workers Circle, Southwest Florida Interfaith Action, the UCC Florida Conference, and caring individuals raised money so buses filled with people could pour out from Ft. Myers, Naples, Miami, Broward, Tampa, and Orlando to the vigils week after week.
The bedrock message of the vigil to anyone who was detained and all who were afraid: you are not alone, we stand with you, we will fight this together. Upon that foundation relationships of trust were built over time with family members whose loved ones were detained and with people being held. And from that commitment to one another grew a movement to shut down this detention facility and end the vicious abductions, detentions, disappearances and deportations that are driving this Gulag Archipelago of detention centers nationwide.
Through heat, deluge, and freezes, from Labor Day, through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentine’s, Passover, Easter, and Mother’s Day, the Workers Circle, together with an indefatigable and tenacious Freedom Vigil Coalition of community partners, stood strong each week and then returned home to advocate by contacting lawmakers, writing opinion pieces, spreading the word to neighbors. The constancy and breadth of participation in the vigil has earned local, regional, national, and international media coverage, ensuring that Alligator Alcatraz and the abuse and torture happening to people held there, stayed in the forefront of the nation’s, indeed the world’s, consciousness.
“The Workers Circle has showed up to the Everglades internment camp every Sunday since August of 2025 — not for a photo op, but to ensure communities of faith and conscience bear witness to this unjust, inhumane facility," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). "Their relentless moral courage to expose the abuses there is critical to the effort to close it. For detainees and families with loved ones inside, they've been vital allies in turning the tide to shutter this monument to cruelty and taxpayer waste. Together, we'll end this dark chapter.”
Vigil participants each week include people currently being detained — who’ve called out from Alligator Alcatraz to testify to abuses, families whose loved ones are unjustly detained, children of holocaust survivors who impressed upon everyone that we must not stand idly by, elders in their 80s and 90s using walkers or wheelchairs and braving stultifying heat to speak out, faith leaders from different backgrounds who marshalled the vast resources of their traditions for this fight for human dignity, union groups, immigrant rights groups, veterans, small business owners, and students in one of the broadest coalitions ever brought together in Florida across party and background to stand against the inhumanity and lawlessness of Alligator Alcatraz and shut it down.
Arianne Betancourt, now a Community Catalyst on staff with the Workers Circle, first came to the vigil days after her father had been taken during a check-in at ICE Court in Miramar. He has been in detention for 6 months, 4 of which have been in Alligator Alcatraz where he has been denied medicine and medical treatment, been pepper-bombed, gone hungry, slept on metal beds with 32 other men in a cage with overflowing toilet. “When I first came to the vigil I was reeling because my dad had been taken. When I came to the vigil I found a community of people who helped me turn my pain into purpose. I’m fighting now, not only for my father but for everyone who is being held unjustly. And we will go the distance together to bring this to an end.” Arianne crucially serves as the primary liaison for family members and people being detained. She gets their stories out to the press, and speaks widely on the freedom vigil efforts across the nation.
The freedom vigil is a place where people find their own power and build power with each other. They are also a springboard for engaging Congress. In March, the Workers Circle flew family members of those currently imprisoned in ICE detention camps at Alligator Alcatraz, Krome Detention Center in Miami and Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, to attend a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing at the invitation of Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), focusing on the Department of Homeland Security, with then DHS Secretary Kristi Noem being removed from her position shortly thereafter. The news of Alligator Alcatraz’s possible closure comes after Senators Durbin and Ossoff initiated an investigation into allegations of torture at the everglades detention center, spurred on by the Workers Circle’s and family members’ testimony at the Senate Juiciary Committee hearing.
Senator Durbin said, “I was honored to help family members impacted by mass deportation and detention share their stories in Congress in March. Their persistent advocacy and willingness to testify to the real, harmful impacts of abusive conditions at Alligator Alcatraz is incredibly brave, and I will not rest until those responsible for these horrific acts are held to account. Workers Circle’s important work is key to that mission.”
Sunday vigils from 4:00-5:00 PM ET outside Alligator Alcatraz will continue weekly as long as people are being detained at the facility in reprehensible conditions. Meanwhile, the Freedom Vigils movement will continue to rise across the nation to end the unconscionable and unconstitutional abductions, detentions, disappearances, and deportations of neighbors, family members, and friends.
Those interested in attending or learning more about the Workers Circle’s freedom vigils, including at Alligator Alcatraz, should visit freedomvigils.org and contact ndamico@circle.org.
Those interested in connecting with or learning more about the Workers Circle should visit circle.org and contact workerscircle@thetascgroup.com.
ABOUT THE WORKERS CIRCLE:
The Workers Circle is a national Jewish social justice organization founded by Eastern European immigrants who came to the United States fleeing autocracy and persecution and seeking democratic freedoms. That history drives the organization’s work today. Home to the grassroots power-building model of Democracy Circles, national freedom vigils, and the Talk to Your Sheriff program, the Workers Circle’s multigenerational activist community of 200,000+ people powers our strategic, non-partisan campaigns to empower voters, strengthen Constitutional rights, and demand the multiracial democracy we need.