Protesters feeling squeeze
Space for sign waving and speeches is shrinking on what has turned into Protest Island near U.S. President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., estate.
Fences and police barricades are closing off territory on tiny Bingham Island, just east of the Southern Boulevard bridge, near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.
The island has become a magnet for Trump protesters and supporters alike since Election Day, because it offers one of the few public gathering spaces available amid the mansions, private clubs and other prized real estate surrounding Mar-a-Lago.
But barriers erected in recent weeks have closed most of the parking and the grassy areas where hundreds of demonstrators had been gathering to spread their message close to what the president calls his Southern White House.
“It’s as close as you can get to Mar-a-Lago when he’s in town,” said Trump protest organizer David Gibson, of Peace, Justice, Sustainability Florida. “A piece at a time, they keep taking areas away from us.”
Those hurdles to public access aren’t expected to disappear anytime soon.
Newly added chain-link fences have gone up around construction staging sites for a long-scheduled Southern Boulevard bridge replacement expected to last three years.
That would make most of the island off-limits for large demonstrations until almost the end of Trump’s four-year term.
The public can still use slender strips of beach rimming the island and a narrow area between the fenced-off construction zones.
But that’s not enough room for the hundreds of demonstrators who at times have marched from West Palm Beach over the bridge to Bingham Island.
“There’s no place closer or better to hold rallies,” said Patrick Ferguson of the Sierra Club, who led a climate change protest march to Bingham Island on April 29. “It’s very important to have a public speaking space that close.”
The town of Palm Beach maintains that the new squeeze on public space available at Bingham Island wasn’t an effort to curtail demonstrations during Trump’s visits to Mar-a-Lago. The bridge replacement was in the works long before demonstrators started flocking to Bingham Island, according to town and state representatives.
“These plans have been in place since before President Trump was even running,” Palm Beach Police Capt. Curtis Krauel said.
Bingham Island is a small stretch of land between two bridges that link Palm Beach to the mainland.
South of Southern Boulevard, much of the island is a bird sanctuary. North of Southern Boulevard, the island features a narrow beach, a parking lot and grassy right-of-way area, which have become a rallying site for demonstrators.
Demonstrators can use sidewalks, parks and other public areas in the town of Palm Beach — as long as they don’t block traffic — but there aren’t many of those near Mar-a-Lago, according to the police department.
“It’s in a residential community,” Krauel said about the president’s three-hectare estate, which he turned into a private club. “This isn’t a government park or a business district.”