Despite resistance, Florida officials are turning an airfield in the Everglades into a migrant detention center, which they've nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" due to its proximity to the apex predators.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier proposed the project last week, saying in a video posted to X that, in support of the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had asked state leaders to identify places for temporary detention facilities.
"I think this is the best one, as I call it: Alligator Alcatraz," Uthmeier said, referencing the infamous prison island in San Francisco Bay.
"This 30-square mile area is completely surrounded by the Everglades. It presents an efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don't need to invest that much in the perimeter," he said. "If people get out, there's not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons."
The site of the proposed facility is the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, located along the eastern boundary of the Big Cypress National Preserve and some 55 miles west of Miami. The state originally intended for it to become the "Everglades Jetport" — envisioned as the largest airport in the world — but halted development in the 1970s over environmental concerns.
These days, its sole 10,500-foot long runway is primarily used as a precision-instrument landing and training facility, according to Miami International Airport. Uthmeier described the site as "virtually abandoned."
He got the green light within days.
Uthmeier told the right-wing podcast The Benny Show on Monday that the federal government had approved his plan that morning, with the facility on track to open the first week of July. He said it would have 5,000 beds — half of its total capacity — by "early July."
"Alligator Alcatraz will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida," the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) later wrote on X.
