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The Republican Party of Florida was pushing a new line of merchandise Friday: baseball caps, T-shirts, mugs and insulating drink sleeves with "THE DEPORT DEPOT" in blocky stencil font diagonally across a bright orange square.
Two days later, after Home Depot expressed concern about the unapproved use of its branding, the items had been scrubbed from the Florida GOP’s digital storefront and posts on X about the new line had been deleted - but a post on Instagram featuring images of the merchandise remained. A half-hour after The Washington Post made inquiries, the Instagram post was gone as well.
"We don’t allow any organization to use our branding or logo for their commercial purposes, and we did not approve this use," Beth Marlowe, a Home Depot spokeswoman, said in an email Sunday.
Florida GOP Chairman Evan Power did not respond to requests for comment.
The short-lived deportation-themed merchandise came after Thursday’s announcement by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) of plans to turn an underused state prison into a migrant detention center that can hold up to 1,300 detainees - a facility he referred to as "Deportation Depot." In recent months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have carried out controversial raids at Home Depot parking lots, where undocumented day laborers have long gathered seeking work.
The Baker Correctional Institution in north Florida will cost $6 million to convert for use as a migrant detention center, officials said. The news of the state’s second migrant detention facility follows what DeSantis has touted as the success of Alligator Alcatraz, a detention center near Everglades National Park that opened in early July and now holds about 1,000 detainees. That facility cost $450 million.
The Everglades detention center is also the subject of a line of merchandise for sale on the Florida GOP’s website, as the party tries to capitalize on the headline-making facility for its fundraising efforts.
Inside Alligator Alcatraz, meanwhile, detainees and former guards have reported conditions including limited access to fresh water, rain leaking through the tents that cover the detainees’ chain-link cells and swarms of mosquitoes attacking detainees and staff.
Anna V. Eskamani, a Democratic state legislator representing parts of Orlando, said she contacted Home Depot representatives Friday after seeing the Florida GOP’s new line of clothing and knickknacks.
"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," Eskamani said.
To immigrant rights advocates, the merchandise and the use of alliterative nicknames for the detention centers feels cruel and insensitive. "The names are salt on the wound," said Thomas Kennedy, a policy consultant at the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
Home Depot - a home improvement retail giant with more than 2,300 stores across the U.S. - has become a focal point of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
A June raid at a Los Angeles Home Depot became one of several that sparked a wave of protests the White House sought to quell by sending in the National Guard over state leaders’ objections. On Thursday, a man was hit and killed on a Southern California freeway while fleeing an ICE raid at a Home Depot, local officials told NBC News.
In the District, ICE officers detained multiple people at a Home Depot in Northeast Washington on Tuesday, according to video circulated online. The incident came as the Trump administration signaled it would use its takeover of D.C. police to crack down on immigration.
Marlowe, the Home Depot spokeswoman, said in a statement the company is not notified when ICE activities are going to happen at one of its stores and it is not involved in them.