The Trump administration and Florida leaders partnered collectively to build a detention facility on a distant website nestled within the state’s swampy Everglades to carry undocumented migrants awaiting deportation.
The location, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” opened Tuesday with soft-sided holding models for a whole lot of detainees within the coming days by means of a partnership the place the federal authorities will present funding and the Florida Division of Emergency Administration (FDEM) will oversee the construct out and administration. Further holding models might be added by means of subsequent month, beneath the settlement.
President Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem attended the opening. The leaders additionally held a roundtable discussion on the ability, which is projected to price about $450 million a 12 months. These funds will come from the Federal Emergency Administration Company’s (FEMA) Shelter and Providers Program, which was used to house asylum-seekers in the course of the Biden administration.
Trump, earlier than heading to Florida on Tuesday, suggested anybody who tried to flee from the migrant detention facility to zigzag when attempting to evade alligators and different animals lurking within the Everglades.
“Don’t run in a straight line; run like this,” the president mentioned to reporters, waving his hand from side-to-side.
The DHS-approved site in Ochopee, Fla., will maintain immigrants arrested within the Sunshine State, in addition to transfers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
The Florida state flag waving together with the USA flag. (Getty Photos)
Why Florida?
DeSantis’s administration pitched the partnership to the federal authorities in a 37-page “Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan” earlier this 12 months outlining the state’s requests for reimbursements and looser restrictions on addressing unauthorized immigration.
“Governor DeSantis has insisted that the state of Florida, beneath his management, will facilitate the federal authorities in implementing immigration regulation,” the governor’s workplace mentioned in an announcement to The Hill. “Using this area and/or others across the state, Florida will proceed to steer in immigration enforcement.”
Within the partnership proposal, Florida officers famous that the state’s “geographic place, ambient tradition, and the confluence of three main interstate highways (I-10, I-75 and I-95) have made it enticing to legal organizations smuggling every part from aliens to medicine to weapons and cash.”
A July 2024 Pew Research Center report on unauthorized immigrant communities within the U.S. discovered that Florida’s swelled by not less than 400,000 folks from 2019 to 2022 — greater than every other state within the nation — and estimate its complete undocumented migrant inhabitants at about 1.2 million.
The Florida proposal argued “the character and huge scope of the unlawful alien presence deserves a rethinking of detention processes and requirements” and urged the Trump administration to waive some ICE detention standards.
Remoted Everglades airfield outdoors Miami that Florida officers mentioned an immigration detention facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” is simply days away from being operational. (Courtesy of the Workplace of Lawyer Common James Uthmeier through AP)
Why this location?
The Dade-Collier Coaching and Transition Airport, situated in Ochopee, Fla. — about 36 miles south of Miami — is owned by the Miami-Dade County authorities.
The practically 40-square-mile website was first developed within the late Nineteen Sixties with plans to grow to be a serious hub, however the challenge fizzled due to environmental considerations, leaving only a single strip that has been used as a coaching website and for uncommon basic aviation wants.
Florida officers touted the strip as a profit as a result of it should permit migrants to be flown into and out of the holding facility with out a lot disruption.
In a video coining the positioning a possible “Alligator Alcatraz,” Florida Lawyer Common James Uthmeier (R) highlighted its distant location as a bonus.
“Individuals get out, there’s not a lot ready for them apart from alligators and pythons —nowhere to go, nowhere to cover,” Uthmeier said last month in a video shared on social platform X. “Inside simply 30 to 60 days after we start building, it may very well be up and operating and will home as many as 1,000 legal aliens.”
Florida Lawyer Common James Uthmeier speaks on the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla., on March 5, 2025.
State takeover
FDEM initially supplied to purchase the Dade-Collier Airport from Miami-Dade County, however DeSantis’s administration could not attain an settlement with native leaders on the worth, so the state as a substitute moved to take it over, utilizing the governor’s emergency authority.
FDEM govt director Kevin Guthrie wrote in a letter to Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava (D) on Monday that the company would “start rapid utilization of the improved space of the positioning, as I now deem it needed to fulfill the Division’s present
operational calls for in dealing with the emergency.”
“Time is of the essence,” Guthrie wrote. “We should act swiftly to make sure readiness and continuity in our statewide operations to help the federal authorities with immigration enforcement.”
The director added that the state would preserve management of the positioning so long as DeSantis’s state emergency declaration over immigration stays in impact.
DeSantis’s preliminary declaration was issued in June 2023, citing “mass migration of unauthorized aliens, together with the related abandonment of vessels, with out applicable help from the federal authorities, [that] has created an unmanageable pressure on native sources and can proceed to overburden the capabilities of native governments all through the state.”
He has renewed the order in 60-day intervals, as required beneath Florida regulation, within the months that adopted. The newest extension was issued June 3 and can expire Aug. 2, except it’s once more prolonged.
Miami Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava speaks Wednesday, June 11, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photograph/Marta Lavandier)
Mayor weighs in
Levine Cava, who has been the Miami-Dade mayor since 2020, instructed The Hill in an announcement that she’s involved that state authorities is transferring too quick on the challenge with out totally evaluating its influence.
“We perceive that state companies beneath the Governor’s route have broad authority to take motion beneath declared states of emergency, however the speedy tempo of this effort has offered little alternative for due diligence given the potential vital impacts to our group,” she mentioned.
The mayor highlighted the potential environmental hurt the ability may have on the encompassing Everglades.
“The state of Florida, alongside the federal authorities, has invested billions of {dollars} – together with $6.5 billion beneath Governor DeSantis’s management – in Everglades restoration, given the vital significance of the Everglades not solely to the environment and clear ingesting water, however because the bedrock basis of our state’s $1 trillion tourism economic system,” Levine Cava continued. “The Governor’s workplace has said ‘operations on website might be utterly self-contained,’ however we proceed to have considerations about how a facility at this scale can function with out impacts to the encompassing ecosystem.”
She additionally identified the state initially supplied to buy the property for $20 million, which is a few tenth of the worth in response to the latest property appraisal.
“Given monetary pressure the County is going through, partially because of continued stress from proposed state funds reductions and calls for on native income, it’s vital that we maximize the worth of all taxpayer belongings on behalf of our residents,” the mayor wrote.