The migrant detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz is closed, but much about it remains unresolved. There are lawsuits over detainees’ treatment, environmental claims over damage to protected wetlands and uncertainty about the future of the airstrip it was built on.
One aspect of the South Florida facility has drawn far less attention, though: the name itself, and the long history of associating alligators with racist ideas about people of color.
