Florida this week started construction on a migrant detention facility the state is billing as “efficient” and “low-cost” – because Mother Nature will provide much of the security.
“Alligator Alcatraz,” as Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier calls it, is being erected on a little-used airstrip in the Everglades, the vast expanse of marshes and swamps that covers much of southern Florida and hosts a dizzying array of wildlife, from hundreds of bird species to bobcats, panthers, crocodiles and alligators.
“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons,” Uthmeier said in an announcement video that casts the facility as “the one-stop shop to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda” and features slow-motion footage of snapping alligators.
Construction of the new Florida facility comes just weeks after Trump said he had directed federal agencies to reopen the original Alcatraz – a prison famously known for being virtually inescapable because of its location on a small island in the San Francisco Bay. And in his first term, Trump floated the idea of fortifying the US southern border with a water-filled trench infested with alligators, the New York Times reported (Trump denied it).
Building “Alligator Alcatraz” means a temporary repurposing of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, which Uthmeier describes as “an old, virtually abandoned airport facility right in the middle of the Everglades.”
The overall site is about 39 square miles and contains a runway of about 11,000 feet. It sits 36 miles west of the Miami business district and just 6 miles north of Everglades National Park.
Operating the new detention center would cost the state approximately $450 million a year, according to a senior DHS official.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has expressed reservations about the facility.
“We continue to have significant concerns about the scope and scale of the state’s effort, particularly regarding the environmental safeguards in place given the potentially devastating impact to the Everglades,” Levine Cava said. “We understand that state agencies under the Governor’s direction have broad authority to take action under declared states of emergency, but the rapid pace of this effort has provided little opportunity for due diligence given the potential significant impacts to our community.”
“Alligator Alcatraz” should be ready to host detainees the first week of July, Uthmeier said Monday in an interview with controversial pro-Trump, right-wing commentator Benny Johnson. Construction should be fast, Uthmeier said, as the facility will consist of “light infrastructure” like heavy-duty tents and trailers.
The National Guard will also be on site to help run the facility, according to Uthmeier, who said he met with Trump administration border czar Tom Homan on Sunday. Uthmeier said the federal government has approved Florida’s broader plan to have another 5,000 detention center beds in place by early July, across “a couple of facilities, including what I call Alligator Alcatraz.”
But the timeline to have the site up and running is “not realistic,” according to the Florida Immigrant Coalition, a statewide group of grassroot organizations.
“They want to basically rely on a system of tents – like a tent city – to hold the excess flux of people in detention. It’s just not going to work, especially in the middle of summer, in the Everglades. It’s actually quite cruel and inhumane, and I think it’s designed that way,” said Thomas Kennedy, spokesperson for the organization.
The attorney general promised fair legal proceedings for detainees held at the facility, telling Johnson, “We’ll give them the due process that all these courts say they need.”
Florida’s in-progress temporary facility in the Everglades will supplement what Trump officials have said is limited capacity at detention centers around the country, as the White House continues to push authorities to make at least 3,000 immigration-related arrests per day. Many detainees have so far been sent to Guantanamo Bay or deported to El Salvador’s CECOT mega prison.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Shelter and Services Program has around $625 million that can be tapped to pay for the state’s project. The Biden-era program was created to provide humanitarian support like food, medical care, hygiene and shelter to migrants processed and released from DHS custody.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem praised the state’s “cost-effective and innovative” plan on X Monday, writing, “We will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida.”
The state, through the Florida Division of Emergency Management, offered to buy the land owned by Miami-Dade County for $20 million, citing an executive order from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and an emergency order from the agency. It’s not clear who is currently in control of the site. CNN has reached out to the Miami-Dade County mayor for further details.
The executive order, first signed in 2023 and later extended, declared a state of emergency in Florida over illegal immigration. It allows the Division of Emergency Management to “direct assistance and enter into agreements with” the federal government “to meet this emergency.”
Plans to build the Everglades facility have been met with fierce criticism from environmental advocacy groups like the Friends of the Everglades, who on Sunday took part in a protest of the detention center.
In a public letter addressed to Uthmeier and DeSantis, the group said the piece of land where the center would be built is “critical to the future of the Everglades.”
“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.
Friends of the Everglades was founded to oppose construction on the very same spot in 1969, Eve Samples, the group’s executive director, told CNN.
At that time, the same piece of land was supposed to house the Everglades Jetport, one of the biggest, most ambitious airport projects of that time. The plan was abandoned after just one runway was built, over concerns it would “destroy the South Florida ecosystem,” according to a 1969 report.
“It really strikes you as a clueless idea that was off the cuff,” Samples said of “Alligator Alcatraz.”
“It’s really ironic that the state attorney general is characterizing this as a largely abandoned site. It was abandoned because the people of Florida, including Friends of the Everglades, rose up to stop it back in 1969, 1970,” she told CNN affiliate WPTV.
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