I am a 16-year-old student of Haitian, Jamaican, and Cuban descent. My roots come from communities that have always had to fight for dignity, justice, and recognition. That’s why it’s heartbreaking to see a migrant detention facility now called “Alligator Alcatraz” being constructed in one of the most sacred ecosystems in the world: the Florida Everglades.

As a student in both a Cambridge academic track and an Environmental Magnet program at South Plantation High School, I’ve studied the Everglades not just as a landscape, but as a life source one that provides drinking water to over 8 million Floridians, shelters endangered species, and sustains the balance of an entire region.

Through my work, I’ve learned that environmental harm and human injustice are often connected. That’s exactly what this camp represents.

“Alligator Alcatraz” doesn’t just detain migrants it dehumanizes them. Politicians joke about letting alligators guard the facility. Meanwhile, this construction disrupts fragile wetlands, pollutes critical watersheds, and endangers wildlife already at risk of extinction.

This is not just a humanitarian crisis. It’s an environmental one.

I refuse to let this happen quietly.

Sign the petition to stop Alligator Alcatraz — and take a stand for human dignity, climate justice, and the future of our Everglades.