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OCHOPEE, USA: US President Donald Trump reveled in a new Florida migrant detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” Tuesday, joking that any escapees would be taught to run away from the reptiles to avoid being eaten.

Critics of Trump’s harsh immigration crackdown have called the site in the Everglades swamp inhumane, but the Republican embraced the controversy as he attended its official opening.

“A lot of cops in the form of alligators — you don’t have to pay them so much,” Trump told reporters in Ochopee, Florida.

“I wouldn’t want to run through the Everglades for long. It will keep people where they’re supposed to be.”

The Florida detention center is part of the Trump administration’s tough optics for its crackdown on undocumented migrants since the 78-year-old returned to power in January.

The site on an abandoned airfield in the Everglades conservation area will cost an estimated $450 million and house 1,000 people, Florida authorities say.

Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who greeted Trump on the tarmac, said “we want to cut through bureaucracy... to get the removal of these illegals done.”

Trump, who has cracked down on undocumented migrants since returning to power, riffed on the idea of people running away from Florida wildlife as he left the White House earlier.

“I guess that’s the concept,” Trump told reporters when asked if the idea behind the detention center was that people who escaped from it would get eaten by alligators or snakes.

“This is not a nice business. Snakes are fast, but alligators... we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator, okay?

“If they escape prison, how to run away. Don’t run in a straight line. Run like this. And you know what? Your chances go up about one percent.”

But Trump later embarked on one of his dark diatribes about immigration in a news conference at the site, describing an influx of undocumented migrants under Democratic predecessor Joe Biden as “disgusting” and falsely conflating most migrants with “sadistic” criminal gangs.

The name “Alligator Alcatraz” is a reference to Alcatraz Island, the former prison in San Franciso that Trump recently said he wanted to reopen.

That plan has apparently stalled after officials said it would cost too much and be too impractical to reopen the prison surrounded by shark-infested waters.

As it seeks to look tough on migration, the Trump administration is also sending some undocumented migrants to the former “War on Terror” prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Protesters against Trump’s immigration policies have demonstrated outside the new Florida facility in recent days.

Environmentalists have also criticized the creation of the camp in a conservation area.

The Everglades National Park is particularly known as a major habitat for alligators, with an estimated population of around 200,000. They can reach up to 15 feet in length when fully grown.

Attacks by alligators on humans are relatively rare in Florida.

Across the entire state there were 453 “unprovoked bite incidents” between 1948 and 2022, 26 of which resulted in human fatalities, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

But authorities have played up the risk.

Trump’s “Alligator Alcatraz” visit comes as he tries to push a huge tax and spending bill through Congress this week.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill” contains funding for Trump’s immigration crackdown including an increase in places in detention centers.

The deportation drive is part of a broader campaign of harsh optics on migration, including raids in Los Angeles that sparked protests against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

ATHENS: Greece on Tuesday began charging a tax on island cruise ships, the latest European effort to tackle soaring visitor numbers to the continent’s most popular destinations.

Cruise ships docking at the popular islands of Santorini and Mykonos will pay 20 euros ($23.62) per passenger.

“In accordance with the law, the tax will be applied in Santorini, Mykonos and other islands in lesser measures,” a finance ministry spokesman told AFP.

Cruise ships to smaller islands will pay a tax of five euros per passenger, according to the new regulations.

Greece hopes to bring in up to 50 million euros a year with the tax, which will apply during the high tourism season, from June 1 to September 30.

Greece adopted the legislation last year in an effort to curb soaring tourist numbers to often-overcrowded destinations, the latest country in Europe to take such measures.

Italian authorities in Venice, one of the world’s top tourist destinations, last year introduced payments for day visitors, who must pay an access fee of five euros ($5.90) on certain days.

In Spain, the government has cracked down on illegal short-term tourist rentals, with sites like Airbnb and Booking.com ordered to take down thousands of ads amid local alarm about increasingly scarce and unaffordable housing.

The hugely popular island of Ibiza in June began limiting the number of incoming tourist cars and caravans because of the increasing numbers of visitors.

Locals in Barcelona and elsewhere in Spain, the world’s second most-visited country, have held protests against over-tourism.

Greece plans to use the money raised to upgrade over-strained infrastructure on the islands, including their ports, which are often too small to receive multiple cruise ships at once.

Tourism, and the cruise industry in particular, is booming in Greece.

Cruise ship passenger numbers surged 13.2 percent last year to 7.9 million, according to the Hellenic Ports Association, which predicts the trend will continue.

Mykonos, known as a party destination for international jet-setters, received nearly 1.3 million visitors last year, up 8.4 percent from the previous year.

Perched on a volcano, Santorini received more than 1.3 million passengers last year, up four percent.

The island last year limited cruise ship arrivals to 8,000 passengers per day, yet on the first day of the tax, four ships with around 8,400 passengers were scheduled to dock in Santorini, according to port authority figures.

Famed for its sunsets, the island is saturated with tourists in some areas, causing traffic jams, water shortages, waste management headaches and other problems.

Some residents also complain about the pollution generated by the ships, while local businesses say passengers often stay just a few hours and spend little.

But not everyone is happy with the new tax.

The head of the local port authority, Athanasios Kousathanas-Megas, demanded on Friday that the government delay the rollout, complaining the tax creates “unfair competition” between highly taxed islands and the rest.

The cruise industry has hit back at criticism, saying cruise passengers are a small minority of total tourists and generate $2 billion in revenues per year for Greece.

Last year, 40.7 million tourists visited Greece, up 12.8 percent from 2023, according to official figures.