Corporate complaints over “parodic” merchandise found the Republican Party of Florida responding to a home improvement chain about First Amendment rights.
Never one to rest on his laurels, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) previewed a follow-up detention center to Alligator Alcatraz last week. Unfortunately, the RPOF’s decision to sell hats, mugs and T-shirts promoting the “Deportation Depot” found them pulling the gear after use of the familiar orange and white design left The Home Depot objecting.
“We don’t allow any organization to use our branding or logo for their commercial purposes, and we did not approve this use,” Home Depot spokeswoman Beth Marlowe told The Washington Post.
Having agreed to pull the gear that read “The Deport Depot,” the RPOF told the newspaper, “RPOF’s limited-run products here were not affiliated with The Home Depot.”
“The designs on the products are a playful commentary supporting Florida’s ‘Deportation Depot’ immigration center, and they are parodic, artistic, and non-commercial speech protected by RPOF’s First Amendment right to engage in political speech,” the organization added.
Previously, RPOF chair Evan Power had expressed to the Tampa Bay Times that defense of the design would hold up based on previous case law as “no reasonable person would think it’s the logo of a company.”
“It’s proving a point by highlighting a recognizable symbol,” he added.
As had been reported, while speaking at the Baker Correctional Institution west of Jacksonville, Florida, DeSantis had announced the followup detention center to Alligator Alcatraz would be dubbed “Deportation Depot” and was expected to include over 1,000 beds.
“We’re taking yet another step in supporting the important mission that President Trump was elected to implement, securing the border, enforcing immigration laws and removing illegal aliens who are in our society now and sending them back to their home country,” America’s governor stated during the press conference. “We have done more on this than any other state by a country mile.”
BREAKING: Deportation Depot merchandise has been released – after Governor Ron DeSantis announced the Alligator Alcatraz sister location to house and deport illegal aliens.
So they can be rounded up at a Home Depot and sent to Deportation Depot. Glorious.
I LOVE MY STATE!… pic.twitter.com/2jpBN790y9
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 15, 2025
In fact in California, Los Angeles’ Home Depots had been deemed de facto sanctuaries for illegal aliens by U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong when she sided with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D), the ACLU and other local leaders that alleged immigration enforcement officials were “unlawfully” targeting groups without “reasonable suspicion that there is a violation of immigration law.”
The judge had placed a temporary restraining order blocking immigration enforcement officials from “carrying out arrests at Home Depots, car washes, etc in the LA area.”
Meanwhile, Florida state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who’d been among a group of Democratic Party lawmakers who had been turned away from exercising “oversight” over Alligator Alcatraz in early July, told the Post, “I’m happy to see the merchandise be removed but at the end of the day it doesn’t address the offensive and arrogant behavior of the anti-immigrant agenda.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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