(The Hill) – The Trump administration and Florida leaders are transferring ahead with a plan to build a detention facility on a distant web site nestled within the state’s swampy Everglades to carry undocumented migrants awaiting deportation.
The location, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” might open with soft-sided holding items for a whole lot of detainees within the coming days by 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. Extra holding items will likely be added by subsequent month, underneath the settlement.
The power is projected to price about $450 million a yr, which is able to come from the Federal Emergency Administration Company’s (FEMA) Shelter and Providers Program that was used to house asylum-seekers in the course of the Biden administration.
“Beneath President Trump’s management, we’re working at turbo pace on cost-effective and revolutionary methods to ship on the American individuals’s mandate for mass deportations of felony unlawful aliens,” Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem stated in an announcement this week. “We are going to increase services and mattress house in simply days, because of our partnership with Florida.”
The DHS-approved plans will permit the brand new Florida facility to carry 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 Photographs)
Why Florida?
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) administration pitched the partnership to the federal authorities in a 37-page “Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan” earlier this yr, outlining the state’s requests for reimbursements and looser restrictions on addressing unauthorized immigration.
“Governor DeSantis has insisted that the state of Florida, underneath his management, will facilitate the federal authorities in implementing immigration regulation,” the governor’s workplace stated in an announcement to The Hill. “Using this house and/or others across the state, Florida will proceed to guide 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 engaging to felony organizations smuggling every thing 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 at the least 400,000 individuals from 2019 to 2022 — greater than every other state within the nation — and estimates its whole 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 stated an immigration detention facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” is simply days away from being operational. (Courtesy of the Workplace of Legal professional Basic James Uthmeier through AP)
Why this location?
The Dade-Collier Coaching and Transition Airport, situated in Ochopee, Florida — about 36 miles south of Miami — is owned by the Miami-Dade County authorities.
The almost 40-square-mile web site was first developed within the late Nineteen Sixties with plans to develop into a significant hub, however the challenge fizzled due to environmental considerations, leaving only a single strip that has been used as a coaching web site and for uncommon normal aviation wants.
Florida officers touted the strip as a profit as a result of it’s going to 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 Legal professional Basic 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 in a video shared on social platform X. “Inside simply 30 to 60 days after we start building, it could possibly be up and operating and will home as many as 1,000 felony aliens.”
State takeover
FDEM initially provided 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 an alternative moved to take it over, utilizing the governor’s emergency authority.
FDEM government 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 satisfy 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 keep 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 assist from the federal authorities, [that] has created an unmanageable pressure on native assets 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 underneath Florida regulation, within the months that adopted. The newest extension was issued June 3 and can expire Aug. 2, until it’s once more prolonged.
Miami Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava speaks Wednesday, June 11, 2025, in Miami. (AP Picture/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 impression.
“We perceive that state businesses underneath the Governor’s course have broad authority to take motion underneath declared states of emergency, however the speedy tempo of this effort has supplied little alternative for due diligence given the potential important impacts to our group,” she stated.
The mayor highlighted the potential environmental hurt the power might have on the encircling Everglades.
“The state of Florida, alongside the federal authorities, has invested billions of {dollars} — together with $6.5 billion underneath Governor DeSantis’s management — in Everglades restoration, given the important significance of the Everglades not solely to our surroundings 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 acknowledged ‘operations on web site will likely be utterly self-contained,’ however we proceed to have considerations about how a facility at this scale can function with out impacts to the encircling ecosystem.”
She additionally identified that the state initially provided to buy the property for $20 million, which is a couple of tenth of the worth in keeping with the newest property appraisal.
“Given monetary pressure the County is going through, partially as a result of continued strain from proposed state finances reductions and calls for on native income, it’s important that we maximize the worth of all taxpayer belongings on behalf of our residents,” the mayor wrote.
