Yeah, it's a concentration camp. It's also a meme, a troll and an especially ugly distillation of American history

In the course of this country’s development, our predecessors manifested great virtue, but they were not free from significant moral lapses.

The mocking of immigrant detainees harks back to “the worst parts of our history” when similar jokes and tropes, such as “gator bait,” were used to dehumanize Black people and desensitize people to the harm and violence inflicted upon them, says ACLU Florida Executive Director Bacardi Jackson.

Land in the Everglades once designated to be a jetport, is now being turned into a detention center for migrants and being called Alligator Alcatraz.

Before a visit to the immigrant detention facility in the Everglades, Trump told reporters that snakes and alligators would attack anyone trying to get out. During the tour, he made another joke about “a lot of cops that are in the form of alligators” at the facility.

"No, we’re not calling it Alligator Alcatraz. It’s a Florida concentration camp," one prominent copy editor said.

Nazi comparisons surge in response to aggressive immigrant detention and enforcement policies, as do rebukes that such language trivializes the Holocaust.

The monstrous, recently constructed immigrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades, flippantly dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” literally took on water within a day of President Trump visiting the camp Tuesday to commemorate its planned Wednesday opening.

This facility’s purpose fits the classic model, and its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.

TheGrio’s Natasha S. Alford warns that MAGA mockery of immigrants echoes America’s violent past: “We have to watch our history.”