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A new kind of detention center is underway for undocumented migrants — but the location is somewhere you'd never expect. Nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” the facility is set to develop in the swamps of the Florida Everglades, surrounded by murky waters, pythons, and Florida’s fiercest predators, alligators.
The former airport facility offered to the Trump administration by the state’s Attorney General, James Uthmeier, consists of a 39 square mile plot of land, described as “virtually abandoned,” and surrounded by alligators. The facility would be placed on a 10,500 foot runway and have a capacity to host at least 1,000 beds for “criminal aliens.” And AG Uthmeier says, if people do manage to get out, “there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.”
“Within just 30 to 60 days after we begin construction, it could be up and running and could house as many as 1,000 criminal aliens. This presents a great opportunity for the state of Florida to work with Miami-Dade and Collier Counties,” he added. “Alligator Alcatraz — we’re ready to go.”
That said, not everyone’s jumping for joy about this facility. Mark Fleming of the federal litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center has expressed immense concerns, warning that the facility could create an “independent, unaccountable detention system,” per The Independent.
“The fact that the administration and its allies would even consider such a huge temporary facility on such a short timeline, with no obvious plan for how to adequately staff medical and other necessary services, in the middle of the Florida summer heat is demonstrative of their callous disregard for the health and safety of the human beings they intend to imprison there,” Fleming said, adding that the move “simply shocks the conscience.”
Miami-Dade County Mayor Danielle Levine Cava stated Monday that she needed more time to assess the state’s plan for the land in a letter she wrote to the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Cava’s chief of staff, Rachel Johnson, told CBS News that the county has “significant concerns about the environmental impacts on the Everglades which is the source of our clean drinking water and the cornerstone of our regional economy.”
Environmental advocacy group The Friends of the Everglades gathered Sunday to organize a protest and wrote an open letter to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, fighting against the development. “Don’t open the door to development in one of America’s most fragile and iconic ecosystems, surrounded by Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve,” the group wrote, per CNN.
Like the Everglades, things are getting hot. The White House — specifically Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — is pushing ICE to hit an arrest quota of at least 3,000 migrants per day. Meanwhile, ICE is bulldozing through its budget, as Axios reported that the organization has already overspent a whopping $1 billion, with three months left in the fiscal year.
The facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz” is part of a broader and more brutal playbook at the hands of the Trump administration. And if that "Big Beautiful Bill" passes the Senate, ICE will be rolling in an additional $45 billion to strong arm this agenda, per Economic Policy Institute.
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