Week ending December 5
What a bat guano crazy Trustee meeting at a community college can tell us about the state of democracy in the United States is debatable, but not for lack of trying. On Tuesday I attended the Miami-Dade (community) College Trustee meeting discussing the proposed land transfer of a valuable property to the state who will in turn, probably, maybe, we think, give it to Donald Trump's Presidential Library Foundation for a hotel. And maybe a library.
The Abomination on US 41 whose real name is The South Florida Detention Center, which people call by a state endorsed racist nickname, Alligator Alcatraz is still open but did make international news, with Amnesty International saying detainees are being tortured in it and the BBC running a long piece on Haitian immigrants in South Florida that includes video footage of the prayer vigils across from the detention center I'm always going on about.
And the world's Spirit Animal for 2025 made an appearance in Virginia, far from the horrific bear hunt in Florida that threatens a species with a barely stable population.
So, let's dig into the week that was in South Florida and see if we can't find some good stuff about our community.
Table of Contents
Finite
Disappointment
Alligator Alcatraz is still open and is more awful than you think
The well done mini documentary (it's about 12 minutes long) includes footage from a recent weekly Sunday prayer vigil across from the South Florida Detention Center, commonly known by its racist state sponsored nickname, Alligator Alcatraz. The video is moving but brief. Well worth your time.
Two images from Sunday's weekly prayer vigil across from the South Florida Detention Center (nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz) on November 30, 2025. Photo Credits Philip Cardella TWIFL Copyright 2025.
Organizers of the weekly Sunday prayer vigils across from the site hosted their 18th consecutive vigil on Sunday, with about 100 people attending despite being part of a holiday weekend. The attendance in recent weeks has held steady at about 100, if you're wondering. While in some weeks a couple of months ago it dipped into the dozens, and in other weeks it hit the low hundreds (three hundred, probably) the average has been about 100 a week. Not bad for a place supposedly in the middle of nowhere that, admittedly, can be hot, muddy and mosquito filled.
One religious leader that helped facilitate this past week told me that she saw her first ever alligator that day. She was pretty happy about it because, well, as I've said, alligators pose an extraordinarily low risk to humans given how much damage they are capable of. The bison in Yellowstone are far more dangerous to humans.
La Joranda, a Spanish language newspaper in Mexico City with a larger readership ran a story its front page about the protests of the horrors of the American immigration crackdown this week it included a section about the prayer vigils.
Protestas en centros de detención
Cada semana se multiplican las vigilias de solidaridad y protesta en frente de centros de detención de inmigrantes por todo el país, desde la entrada al nuevo campo de concentración bautizado como Alcatraz de los caimanes, en Florida, a las afueras de los centros de detención en Brooklyn y Los Ángeles.
Noelle Damico, directora de justicia social de Workers Circle, declaró este fin de semana desde la vigila semanal frente a Alcatraz que “en todas partes vemos vecinos actuar en apoyo entre sí y denunciar estas operaciones. Por eso estamos aquí, semana tras semanas por ahora cuatro meses; rehusamos voltear a ver a otro lado, nos negamos a permanecer en silencio”. Informa que de ser apenas unas cuantas, ahora hay más de 150 vigilias por todo el país.
Protests in Detention Centers
Every week, solidarity and protest vigils are multiplying in front of immigration detention centers across the country, from the entrance to the new concentration camp named Alcatraz of the alligators, in Florida, outside the detention centers in Brooklyn and Los Angeles.
Noelle Damico, director of social justice at Workers Circle, said this weekend from the weekly watchdog in front of Alcatraz that “Everywhere we see neighbors act in support of each other and denounce these operations. That’s why we’re here, week after weeks for now four months; we refuse to turn to see another side, we refuse to remain silent.” He reports that if it is just a few, there are now more than 150 vigils throughout the country.
And Amnesty International released a report that generated headlines like, "Alligator Alcatraz Detainees Tortured in Small 'Box,' Amnesty International Says: Migrants were allegedly sent to what detainees described as a four-by-four-foot 'box' as punishment," in the Miami New Times and "‘Copy of Guantánamo’: Human rights group alleges torture, inhumanity at ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ Krome: Amnesty International reports rights violations at Florida immigrant detention sites," in the liberal Florida Phoenix. International outlets such as The Guardian also picked the story up.
Richard Luscombe
The entire report is available below. One note about it, the photo of the prayer vigils is so awful the organizers of the prayer vigils, Noelle Damico, who is mentioned in La Joranda's story, called Amnesty International to ask them to change it.
The battle over the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library
Let's be clear from the outset, TWIFL tries to be as non-partisan as possible and doesn't want to categorically say that President Trump's library shouldn't be in Miami. Some make arguments that President Trump has little to do with Miami-Dade County–he hasn't lived here, doesn't do much here, aside from golf. Others say that other Presidential libraries have been located in cities where the President didn't live or work so why not Miami?
I really don't think that matters. A Presidential Library can be a good thing and if you take the name "Trump" off of it, I suspect most people would be open to the "Presidential Library" in Miami-Dade County. It wouldn't be far away from the Ronald Reagan Florida Turnpike, after all and while President Richard Nixon lived here for years (Key Biscayne), only those old enough to remember seeing him here or historians of Florida know that.
Why this goes into the Finite Disappointment section has nothing to do with my views of the potential library or even the proposed land deal (where the community college, which is technically a state entity, transfers property valued between $60-$300 million to the state and the state gives it to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation for free). Rather, it's about the meeting the President of Miami-Dade (nee Community) College and its male trustees (it is dominated by male trustees and it was glaring that the women on the Board were not physically present, though they did call in) held on Tuesday in the suburb of Hialeah at 8 AM.
While Chair Micheal Bileca handled the three hours of public comments commendably, ensuring the rules of decorum and procedure were enforced exactingly and evenly, he exhibited little capacity for enforcing the same for his fellow trustees.
Trustees put words like "Nazi" and "monster" in the mouths of the opposition, went on rants about the Chinese Communist Party and open borders, claimed that every single Presidential library sits exclusively on land that was donated for free to the library (which simply isn't supported by the facts), accused the opposition of living in social media bubbles while bragging about having 2 million social media followers of their own, and generally behaved in a way that calls into question the purpose of the meeting.
I wrote about that in some detail in a special post you can find here:
Philip Cardella
Florida
Gonna Florida
You almost certainly saw this and, technically, this story about a raccoon in Virginia is not a story about Florida. Or is it? I contend this critter is from Florida but he moved the Virginia to escape the pythons Florida Man released into the Everglades like some sort of Florida Man. After all, Tripod the Bear broke into a house in Florida in 2023, stole a bunch of White Claws and enjoyed them in someone's sun room.
Chris Michael
Then again, in Florida we apparently shoot and kill endangered wild life, like black bears, for fun.
Mitch Perry
I want this section to be fun, at least most of the time, but Florida gonna Florida.
Anyway, in case you missed my Thanksgiving edition of what I'm thankful about living in Florida, Miami specifically, you can check it out here. I am, after all, a Florida Man, at least in residence.
Philip Cardella
Historic
Interlude
50 years ago this week Miami experienced two more bombs exploding in what had become a pattern that year and an example of why some historians call the 1970s "The decade of nightmares." Ten years ago the Miami New Times ran a story on this so I'll leave it to them to tell about it.
Support Us
Infinite
Hope
Time with Family
Last week we went to North Carolina to be with family, which is wear I captured the image of the chapel at the top of this section. It was nice to see my sister-in-law and my 98 year old grandma, who live up there (separately, if it matters to anyone).
Last night I stopped writing this and sat down and watched the 2019 Charlie's Angels movie made by Elizabeth Banks, almost single-handedly, and thus panned by a lot of critics. The movie was fun. Banks said she wanted to make an action movie but no one would let her so she made an action movie about women, because they'd at least let her do that.
She'd go on to make Cocaine Bear, which isn't a story about Florida, so far as I know, though it probably could be.
Before that I spent time with my church family and with my family at the nonprofit I love, PACT and with my family in the Everglades, the prayer vigil folks.
When they are good things family and community are nearly interchangeable and such an important part of our lives.
Bear
The History Hound Finds
Bernadette Atuahene
Andrew Wisniewsky