Right-wing media claimed the 'worst of the worst' would be housed at Florida's new immigrant detention center. Hundreds of detainees have no criminal record.
Right-wing media have heralded the Trump administration’s “Alligator Alcatraz” as a detention center for “pedophiles” and “drug traffickers,” but new reporting shows over 250 detainees have no criminal charges.
Contrary to right-wing media’s narrative about the detention center, detainees include asylum-seekers and people who have been held over minor infractions like traffic violations — despite insistence from right-wing media figures that the harsh camp would be reserved for “the worst of the worst” and the “baddest of the bad hombres,” with one calling the detainees “subhuman.”
The detention camp is located in the Florida Everglades, reportedly surrounded by alligators and other dangerous animals. Seizing on this fact, figures in right-wing media have flippantly remarked about “feeding illegals to the gators” and referred to detainees as “fresh meat.”
Related Knowledge Center: Fact-checking and its detractors
Fact-checking has become a familiar tool for political reporters to hold office-holders and candidates accountable. But critics ask if fact-checkers sometimes miss the forest for the trees, and if the practice often struggles with false equivalency the way conventional political coverage does.