A Florida state representative said Tuesday that President Donald Trump is building “modern-day concentration camps,” calling out his newly opened illegal immigrant holding facility in the state.
“So, this isn’t about safety,” lawmaker Angie Nixon said during an interview with CNN anchor Brianna Keilar.
Earlier in the day, Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited “Alligator Alcatraz,” a migrant detention facility just opened in the Everglades.
The detention center is located on the site of a former airport and is said to be able to accommodate 5,000 illegal immigrants, with the president working to act on campaign promises to remove illegal immigrants from the country.
But Nixon, who represents Florida’s District 13, says that the holding facility is akin to camps that evoke imagery of the Holocaust.
“This is actually about Donald Trump building modern-day concentration camps in an effort to disappear people from our communities,” Nixon said. “Donald Trump‘s blueprint for America has now become barbed wire and broken families. You don‘t make America great again by doing these types of things. All he’s simply doing is returning our country to the worst chapters of our history.”
TRUMP SAYS ONLY WAY OUT OF ‘ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ’ IS DEPORTATION
Keilar also asked Nixon about Trump’s remarks during his visit to Alligator Alcatraz, where he said, “Many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here, too, if you want to know the truth. So maybe that’ll be the next job that we’ll work on together.”
Nixon responded by saying that Trump would be breaking the law.
“So, first of all, what Donald Trump is talking about doing is definitely unconstitutional,” Nixon said. “And he should know, him not having been put in jail for some of the atrocities that he‘s committed. But these folks are U.S. citizens, and they should be handled as such. They should be — they should receive due process.”
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