The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) approved Florida’s proposal to create a migrant detention facility in the middle of the Everglades.
Florida’s Attorney General, James Uthmeier, called the project “Alligator Alcatraz.” Upon proposing the facility, Uthmeier said the Miami-Dade Collier Training Facility is an “abandoned airport facility right in the middle of the Everglades” that “presents an efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because 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.”
DHS said in a statement supporting the project that it is “working on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations.”
“Alligator Alcatraz will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida,” DHS noted.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said the “new facilities will in large part be funded by FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, which the Biden administration used as a piggy bank to spend hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to house illegal aliens, including at the Roosevelt Hotel that served as a Tren de Aragua base of operations and was used to shelter Laken Riley’s killer.”
Uthmeier also confirmed the partnership with DHS, saying he is “proud to help support President Trump and Secretary Noem in their mission to fix our illegal immigration problem once and for all. Alligator Alcatraz and other Florida facilities will do just that.”
He declared that Florida will “fight alongside this administration to keep Florida safe, strong, and free.”
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava criticized the development, saying the facility may have “devastating” impacts on the Everglades ecosystem.
Rachel Johnson, the deputy chief of staff for Cava, said 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, and we requested a detailed analysis and report on environmental impacts of this facility to the Everglades ecosystem.”
