Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2025
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by Alan Jamison
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Social media has been buzzing lately over Florida’s announcement that it plans to build a 5,000-bed detention center for illegal aliens in the heart of the Everglades – what supporters and critics alike are calling “Alligator Alcatraz.” The facility will be used to house illegal aliens while they await deportation and will be on property owned by Miami-Dade County.
The land for Alligator Alcatraz is about 30 square miles in size and is located on an old air strip between Collier County and Miami-Dade County. The facility is expected to cost approximately $450 million per year to operate. The state government can seek financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to operate the detention center. The money will come from a FEMA fund used by the Biden administration to pay outside groups to house illegal aliens.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier recently explained that the detention center would only take a few weeks to complete. Rather than building a brick-and-mortar facility, the state will be using heavy duty tents and trailers. Perhaps best of all, it won’t require high-tech, expensive fencing or other barriers like most prisons. “If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons,” Uthmeier explained.
Uthmeier also said that the federal government has already approved the detention center, meaning that construction can begin soon – perhaps opening as soon as the first week of July. “It’s a location we’ve been looking at with law enforcement for a while,” Uthmeier said. “It’s about 30 square miles down in South Florida, and it presents a unique opportunity for a low-cost detention facility because the perimeter is set by Mother Nature. A lot of people thought it was just a joke, but no, we are serious. We care about immigration enforcement. We’re leading in helping the federal government.”
Florida’s new facility will allow the administration to increase its maximum capacity significantly. The Sunshine State has been a particular area of focus for ICE, as Florida law enforcement has been more than eager to work with the Trump administration on immigration enforcement efforts.
Alligator Alcatraz is part of the Trump administration’s plan to have local authorities help increase detention capacity. This would provide the administration with additional aid without straining the federal government’s resources.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem praised the White House’s partnership with Florida in a post on X.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed to deliver cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens,” she said. “We will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida.”
She added that the new detention center in the Everglades 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.”
Alan Jamison is the pen name of a political writer with extensive experience writing for several notable politicians and news outlets.
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