All in good enjoyable, or a ‘disgrace’? Names of detention facilities divide Americans

It began in Florida with “Alligator Alcatraz.” Then got here information of the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana. Most lately the Trump administration introduced plans for yet one more immigration detention heart, this one in Nebraska, to be referred to as the “Cornhusker Clink.”

The alliteration, borrowed from the science of promoting, goes down as straightforward as a Krispy Kreme for some Americans, for whom it’s all in good enjoyable. Memes have been made. T-shirts have been touted. The president has joked that detainees in Florida ought to be taught the easiest way to run from an alligator, within the occasion of an escape from the middle that opened final month within the Everglades.

“It’s got a ring to it,” Ron Buschelman, 66, stated of the title “Cornhusker Clink” as he stood on Monday exterior a farm provide retailer on the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska. Referring to President Donald Trump, he added, “He’s got a very good sense of humor. And there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a clink. It is. And we’re the Cornhusker State. I like it.”

For different folks, although, there was one thing repugnant a few authorities that will make mild of an increasing mass deportation program that has despatched immigrants to international locations that they don’t seem to be from, separated dad and mom from their youngsters, and deployed masked officers in unmarked vehicles to seize folks off the streets.

“It’s not a reason to joke around,” stated Roxana Cortes-Mills, authorized director of the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement, a nonprofit group in Omaha.

Still, ginning up indignation seems to be the purpose, no less than partially, on this new period of presidency by troll. It is a method that the administration is leaning into in Trump’s second time period — one which his administration is especially keen on deploying within the realm of immigration enforcement.

The names given to the detention facilities are solely a part of it. The official X social media accounts of the White House and the Department of Homeland Security make heavy use of the brand new type — an irreverence synced to the fast-moving ironic currents of the chronically on-line, indifferent from issues about impropriety.

In February, the White House posted a video of immigrants boarding a deportation flight, their shackles clanking, and labeled it ASMR, a sort of video that’s well-liked on-line for delivering nice sounds. A lot of different mocking posts have adopted.

Some of the administration’s posts have veered into white nationalist territory. Earlier this month, Homeland Security posted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruitment attraction asking “Which Way, American Man?” A lot of observers took it as a reference to a 1978 e-book, “Which Way, Western Man?,” written by white supremacist William Gayley Simpson.

In a subsequent information launch, Homeland Security officers accused information shops of failing to report on victims of immigrants within the nation with out authorized standing who commit violent crimes, and of claiming that the division’s social media posts had been “appealing to ‘white identity’” on-line.

Asked by reporters final week in regards to the publish, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for DHS, replied, “Where are we quoting a white supremacist?”

In the identical information launch, Homeland Security stated that its “social media reach” had exploded within the final six months, “from 3.5 million weekly impressions in February to 46.1 million in July 2025.” The development was the outcome, officers stated, of the division’s “enhanced ability to effectively communicate critical information to the American public.”

The flippantly named detention services are all state-federal partnerships, a part of an effort to increase detention capability across the nation because the Trump administration works to satisfy a aim it has set of 1 million deportations a yr.

James Uthmeier, the Florida lawyer basic, was the primary to talk publicly of “Alligator Alcatraz,” asserting in a web-based video in June that it could be constructed on a former airstrip in the course of the Everglades.

Detainees on the facility have complained that the lights keep on all through the evening, and that the tents that home them leak through the space’s frequent rainstorms. Last week, a federal choose ordered that a lot of the power be dismantled, and that no extra detainees be despatched there. The state of Florida is interesting the choice, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has stated his state will quickly open a second detention heart, to be referred to as “Deportation Depot,” in an empty jail west of Jacksonville.

Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian, stated the branding of the detention facilities mirrored Trump’s knack for affixing catchy nicknames or descriptions to political opponents and to laws just like the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the tax and spending plan that he signed into legislation final month. Among many different issues, that invoice offers funding for 80,000 new immigrant detention beds.

“It’s more populist,” Brinkey stated of Trump’s tactic. “It’s something where people will read it and remember it, where having arcane legal language or talking in more than a quick sound bite gets lost in a culture with so much content.”

Brinkley noticed some free precedents in American politics. During the administration of President Herbert Hoover, a Republican, Democrats popularized the label “Hooverville” to each describe Depression-era homeless encampments and to pin the blame for them on Hoover, who turned out to be a one-term president.

Rick Perlstein, a progressive historian of American conservatism, stated the jokey names reminded him of language used to denigrate opponents in conflict.

“It’s quite plainly intended to humiliate and dehumanize the people who are sent to these places,” he stated.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, stated in an emailed assertion that “highlighting the dangerous criminal illegal aliens the Trump administration is deporting is not dehumanizing,” including, “We won’t apologize for deporting illegal aliens or for sharing our successful efforts with the American people.”

In interviews, some Trump supporters stated they thought the names had been intelligent and efficient.

Referring to “Alligator Alcatraz,” Michael Alexander, 60, of Altamonte Springs, Florida, stated the title “spells out the fact that we’re taking this seriously.”

“If you remember Alcatraz, when it was open, before they closed it down, you didn’t want to go there,” Alexander stated, talking of the previous jail on an island in San Francisco Bay. He had nothing in opposition to authorized immigration, he stated, noting that his spouse was an immigrant.

“I adore my wife,” he stated. “A lot of my best friends are immigrants. We want you here. But we want you to be here legally.”

In Omaha on Monday, Alberto Lopez, 62, whose dad and mom moved to the mainland United States from Puerto Rico, chafed on the names “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Cornhusker Clink.”

“That’s not good leadership,” he stated. “If you’re going to be a good leader, you have to know your boundaries and how to talk to individuals.”

The Nebraska facility, a partnership between Homeland Security and the state, is to carry as many as 280 detainees in McCook, a small city between Omaha and Denver. In asserting the partnership final week, Homeland Security posted an illustration on X of corn cobs sporting ICE baseball caps. Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, wrote that the power would “help remove the worst of the worst out of our country.”

The title instantly generated controversy. Roger Garcia, a Democrat who chairs the Board of Commissioners in Douglas County, Nebraska, wrote on Facebook that “Cornhusker Clink” had been devised as “something to laugh about, just like ‘Alligator Alcatraz’.” He continued, “But woe to you who laugh now and to those who use your power to harm instead of nurture harmony and compassion in our society.”

Sen. Megan Hunt, a progressive within the state’s nonpartisan Legislature, referred to as on the University of Nebraska, whose sports activities groups are often called the Cornhuskers, to implement its trademark rights.

“Using ‘Cornhusker’ to brand an ICE detention camp is a disgrace,” she wrote.

Bret Younkin, the chair of the Republican Party in Brown County, Nebraska, stated he thought it made sense to open a detention heart within the state, and that earlier administrations had let the immigration difficulty develop uncontrolled. But he was of two minds in regards to the title “Cornhusker Clink,” and its energy to offend.

He stated the nation had typically grown overly nervous about hurting folks’s emotions, and that the oversensitivity might need helped gas the inflow of immigrants with out lawful standing.

Yet Younkin additionally stated he would favor that detention facilities be constructed “without the names,” although he noticed them as a masterstroke of branding.

“Anybody talks about ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ and everybody knows exactly what they mean,” he said.

Beth Zacharias, 63, an Omaha resident who was leaving a Walmart store on Monday afternoon, expressed similarly mixed feelings. She said that opening a detention center in the state was a good idea, and that immigrants should not enter or stay in the country illegally. But when asked about the name “Cornhusker Clink,” she wrinkled her nose.

“To me, it sounds harsh,” she said. “I want everybody to feel like they’re a person, you know? They might have broken the law, and they need to fix it, but, you know, they shouldn’t be laughed at for it.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2025 The New York Times