Reflecting on the Abomination Part 1
By Philip Cardella July 7, 2026
US 41 near Mile Marker 48 in Florida
Almost a year ago the State of Florida gleefully announced it was using emergency powers to seize a little used runway west of Miami to create the South Florida Detention Center, aka the Soft Sided Detention Facility South, aka, "Alligator Alcatraz." Initially, some people thought it was a joke, especially since the creation called for the use of FEMA trailers and FEMA money set aside for hurricanes, trailers that were a year overdue to survivors of the most recent hurricane.
Sadly, it wasn't a joke and in July of 2025 the facility, which I call "The Abomination" opened. By August 3, 2025, a coalition of groups based in various parts of the state including groups on Florida's southwest coast (Greater Naples), Florida's southeast coast (Greater Miami), statewide organizations such as the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC), a national organization named The Workers Circle, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, on whose ancestral land the airport sits.
I'm working on a documentary on the prayer vigils and I'm going to start posting some retrospective videos on the topic after I return from a trip to the West Coast of the United States next week. For now, I thought I'd go post some of the over 1,000 selected photos out of the 10,000+ I snapped, in this case in chronological order, to reflect on the prayer vigils, which eventually were labeled by the Workers Circle "Freedom Vigils" and the 47 weeks they ran.
The Early Days
While the vigils began while I was in California at the start of August of 2025, I made it to my first vigil on a dark and stormy day on August 17. I called a friend who had helped organize the first vigils to see if it was on despite the weather and she assured me they would run rain or shine.
Fortunately, the weather on Florida's peninsula is predictable only in the sense that in the summer it is hot and humid and its going to pour rain in one spot while others roast in the heat: while the vigil was muddy, it did not rain.
Photos from the first vigil I attended (the third overall) on August 17, 2025. All photos Credit Philip Cardella.
Each week, and for over 40 after that, the vigils persisted. In the hot august evenings of 2025 the threat of rain never actually materialized during the vigils, which may or may not have been a blessing. The thing about the rain in Florida is it knocks out the mosquitoes and when it stops raining they come back out hungry. The other thing is, without rain, there is no water, and when there is no water the "River of Grass," as the Everglades is called, can turn into a landscape of fire.
Images from various vigils from August 24-September 2025. All Photos Credit Philip Cardella.
A Hero Arises
By October the weather and the mosquitoes, which were nearly their own weather system as they feasted on attendees in swarms that looked like clouds, were still an issue but the vigils had settled into a rhythm. People started greeting each other each Sunday as if they were old friends and a part of a regular congregation.
By then, word had spread inside The Abomination that the vigils were happening as well as outside the facilities were immigrants were being seized after routine immigration meetings.
That's how Arianne Betancourt came to the vigils. Her father, at the end of his routine immigration check in, was arrested by ICE and dropped into the detention facility. While he has a criminal record, he served his time over a decade ago and has been record free ever since. ICE declared him one of "the worst of the worst," though he had paid his debt to society long ago, after just a few years in prison for relatively minor offenses.
What ICE didn't know is that by arresting Arianne's father they took woman who was a happy tour guide by day and Instagram poster by night and turned her into one of the fiercest immigrant rights activists in the country.
Images from the October through November 2025 vigils across from The Abomination. All photos credit Philip Cardella.
The Vigils Hit Their Stride
As the holiday season approached in 2025 organizers of the vigils were uncertain if the vigils, whose weekly attendance hovered between 100 and 150 on average, would persist.
Instead of losing steam, the vigils thrived during the holidays, with one of the best attended of the 47 happening just after Christmas. Unfortunately, I was in California at the end of 2025 and missed those, but here are some images leading up to the holidays.
Arianne Betancourt speaks about her father's plight while Noelle Damico of the Worker's Circle stands by. Photo credit Philip Cardella.
The plight of Haitians living in TPS became an important part of the vigils and several labor unions helped lead some of the vigils. Meanwhile, The Worker's Circle started chartering buses to bring people from as far away as Ft. Myers and even Orlando to attend the vigils, while organizers in the Greater Miami Area brought buses of their own. One week had as many as five buses of various sizes full of people attend.
Photos from various vigils in November and December of 2025. Photo credit Philip Cardella.
Rumors of the Abomination's Demise
Sometime in the late winter, as the weather cooled and, the mosquitoes calmed and the days shortened, rumors of the demise of The Abomination began turning up. First there was the order to shut it down that was over turned, then, as the winter turned to spring, word started spreading that the facility was winding down operations. As vigil attendance stayed high, in no small part due to a growing crowd of "snow birds," so did hope, along with increasing mountains of evidence that The Abomination was torturing the people inside.
Crucial to attendee's knowledge of what was going on inside of The Abomination was Arianne Betancourt, the tour guide turned activist turned employee of The Worker's Circle, the group organizing the vigils that soon became known as "Freedom Vigils" and included events from Washington State, California, the Midwest and the Eastern Seaboard.
Photos from vigils through the spring of 2026. Photo Credit Philip Cardella.
The Abomination Dies...by Fire?
The perfect weather included weeks and weeks of no rain whatsoever and South Florida entered into the worst drought in a generation. While settlers, colonists and politicians have long considered the Everglades to be a swamp, it is not. It is, in reality, a massive shallow river that once spread from where Kissimmee, Florida now sits (along with Disney World) and flowed all the way into Florida Bay. That river's life cycle always featured fire as a cleansing part of life.
Late spring and early summer of 2026 included several massive wild fires in the historic Everglades, one prompting the evacuation of one of the country's oldest facilities used in the denial of habeas corpus for immigrants, the Krome Detention Center just up US 41 from The Abomination.
My personal theory is that the bad news, ridiculous burn of cash and the fires, not the threat of hurricanes, prompted the facility to announce it was closing in early June. It wouldn't be until July that the facility finally emptied of detainees. While some of these detainees, including Justo Betancourt, Arianne's father, were released, many were simply transferred to different detention facilities.
Through it all, the recipient of the largest contract to operate the so-called Alligator Alcatraz, Doodie Calls, was a constant and fitting sight during the vigils, which finally ended June 21, 2026, nearly a year after the DeSantis and Trump connected waste company started hauling human shit out of the Everglades.
Photos from the vigils during the late spring and early summer of 2026. 287g requirements mandated that participating agencies send units to Alligator Alcatraz during its lifetime and, apparently after it had sent the last detainees away. Photo credits Philip Cardella 2026.
Wish me luck in working on the documentary. I'm trying to assemble a team to put it together or to let someone who knows what they're doing take over the footage. Along with at least fifty hours of footage of the vigils I have a dozen or so hours of interviews with people connected to it and over 1000 photos that made the cut out of the 10,000 or so I snapped during the vigils. I appreciate you joining me on this journey and without all of the thousands of people that attended vigils this past year there would be nothing to report.
Some of my existing edited videos from the vigils can be found here:
Philip Cardella
And here:
Keep an eye out for more material as I edit it into something manageable.
Philip Cardella
