Defying Trump, Miami Archbishop Celebrates Christmas Mass at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

Miami’s archbishop spent Christmas Day behind barbed wire — celebrating Mass for migrants in Florida’s infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” camp. It capped a year-long fight for their dignity.

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Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami stood before hundreds of immigrants detained inside Florida’s newest migrant camp on Christmas morning.

In a makeshift chapel behind the chain-link fences of “Alligator Alcatraz,” Wenski celebrated Mass and preached a homily of hope. He drew a direct line between the detainees and the Holy Family: Jesus was born when there was “no room for him in the inn” and soon became a refugee in Egypt — effectively an undocumented migrant.

“The Christmas story is your story,” Wenski told those separated from their loved ones, reminding them that God himself came into the world as a homeless child.

Rows of bunk beds fill the interior of the Florida detention camp known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” which President Donald Trump toured on its opening day. Officials touted the swamp location as an ideal detention site — effectively bragging about the camp’s harsh, alligator-infested conditions

Rosaries and Harleys Open the Gates

At one point, it seemed this Mass would never happen. When Alligator Alcatraz opened in July, detainees were denied access to clergy or sacraments — guards even seized Bibles and told migrants there was “no right to religion” in the camp.

Wenski was outraged, blasting the policy as an “intentional effort to dehumanize” those being held.

After weeks of getting nowhere by ordinary means, the archbishop took matters into his own hands. On July 20, he hopped on his motorcycle and rode with two dozen Knights of Columbus bikers to the camp’s entrance.

It was an unusual sight: a prelate in a leather vest, backed by rosaries and Harleys, refusing to let the detainees be forgotten.

Within weeks, their persistence paid off. By early August, priests were finally allowed to celebrate Mass inside Alligator Alcatraz. Wenski announced that regular liturgies would continue now that the door was open.

At the first Mass, about 150 detainees attended, grateful to know they were not abandoned.

“Going there and celebrating Mass is one way of affirming them and their humanity,” the archbishop said, emphasizing that these migrants are “not forgotten by God.”

No Christmas Truce from Trump

Just days before Christmas, Archbishop Wenski and Florida’s Catholic bishops implored President Trump to pause immigration raids for the holidays.

“Don’t be the Grinch that stole Christmas,” Wenski warned, urging Trump to let migrant families spend the season together instead of in fear.

The White House’s answer was a flat no. Trump’s spokeswoman said immigration enforcement would continue unabated — no mercy, not even on the Lord’s birthday.

This Florida confrontation caps a year of Church–State clashes over migrants. Since Pope Leo XIV’s election in May, the new pontiff has repeatedly condemned Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.

When ICE officials blocked detained Catholics from receiving the Eucharist this fall, Pope Leo blasted the move as a betrayal of Christian values.

Trump’s allies lashed out in turn, smearing the pope as a “woke Marxist” for defending migrant families.

Undeterred, Leo XIV urged U.S. bishops to speak up — and in November they issued a joint message denouncing the “vilification” of immigrants and mass deportations.

Wenski’s bold stand this Christmas is the kind of witness Pope Leo has been calling for.

On Christmas Day in the Everglades, the Church did what the state would not: it made room at the inn for the poor and the persecuted.

Wenski’s simple liturgy in a prison camp showed where the Church stands — with the Holy Family among the outcasts, not with Herod in the palace.

There may have been no room in Trump’s America for these migrants, but on this holy morning the Body of Christ found a home in Alligator Alcatraz.

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