The state of Florida is putting $245 million into building “Alligator Alcatraz,” an immigration detention facility in the Everglades, which is set to close soon.
An email obtained by The Associated Press from Kevin Guthrie, head of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, shows the facility will likely be empty soon after a federal judge ordered it to stop operating.
Newsweek contacted Governor DeSantis’s office and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment on Thursday via email outside of normal office hours.
Why It Matters
Since his second presidential inauguration in January, President Donald Trump has focused on cracking down on illegal immigration. This has included more spending on immigration enforcement and faster deportations.
If the new Florida detention facility closes, it would be a setback for both Governor DeSantis and the Trump administration. It would also show that courts remain a major obstacle to White House immigration policy.
What To Know
Florida officials say the state has signed contracts totaling at least $245 million for work at the facility. The detention center was built by repurposing the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee.
The largest contract, $78.5 million, went to Jacksonville-based Critical Response Strategies, which hires corrections officers, camp managers, and IT staff.
Longview Solutions Group received $25.6 million for site preparation and construction, while IT company Gothams has a $21.1 million contract for services like access badges and detainee wristbands.
Some contract details were later removed from Florida’s public database, drawing criticism from Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani.
Florida officials said part of their spending would be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The Trump administration says it has not funded the facility, according to CBS: “Florida is constructing and operating the facility using state funds on state lands under state emergency authority.”
The filing adds: “DHS (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) has not implemented, authorized, directed, or funded Florida’s temporary detention center.”
The facility was expected to cost $450 million a year to operate, according to CNN.
But in a setback for DeSantis, a federal judge in Miami ruled on August 21 that “Alligator Alcatraz” must close within 60 days, and no more detainees can be sent there. Weeks before, the same judge had stopped construction at the camp.
Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe brought legal challenges against the facility.
What People Are Saying
Florida Representative Debbie Schultz, a Democrat, said about the facility: “They are essentially packed into cages, wall-to-wall humans, 32 detainees per cage.”
Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, told CNN: “The fact that we’re going to have 3,000 people detained in tents, in the Everglades, in the middle of the hot Florida summer, during hurricane season, this is a bad idea all around that needs to be opposed and stopped.”
A DHS official previously told Newsweek: “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens.
“DHS is complying with this order and moving detainees to other facilities. We will continue to fight tooth-and-nail to remove the worst of the worst from American streets.”
What Happens Next
The Trump administration is expected to keep its crackdown on illegal migrants. This could put pressure on existing detention facilities and lead to the construction of new ones.
