On June 20, nearly three weeks into the Atlantic hurricane season, Florida disaster-management officials assembled a group of emergency relief c
Governor Ron DeSantis wanted to construct a camp in the Everglades that could hold thousands of immigrants detained in President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign. To get it built fast, Kevin Guthrie, the head of the state’s emergency-management division, asked the firms to start moving tents, trailers and toilets onto an abandoned airstrip near Miami within days.
The state-run facility, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” was inaugurated with 3,000 beds, with the ability to scale up in the coming weeks and months as needed.
Trump visited the facility on Tuesday with DeSantis and other Florida officials, as well as Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary.
“You have a lot of cops in the form of alligators,” Trump said. “I wouldn’t want to run through the Everglades for long. It will keep people where they’re supposed to be.”
Alligator Alcatraz has been cheered by conservative pundits, and the Florida GOP is selling Alligator Alcatraz t-shirts, hats and beer koozies. It has also drawn protests from environmentalists and critics of Trump’s policies. Scores of protesters were at the site when Trump visited, as a three-foot alligator laid half-submerged in swampy waters nearby.
DeSantis sees Alligator Alcatraz as the first of multiple state-run immigrant detention centers. According to a planning document reviewed by Bloomberg News, emergency contractors in the state could build detention capacity for as many as 10,000 people. Construction is expected to begin on a second camp near Jacksonville, in northeast Florida, after July 4, Guthrie said on Tuesday.
Florida first pitched the Trump administration on the plan for “makeshift detention space” about a month ago, and DeSantis offered Florida National Guard members to serve as immigration judges, the governor said earlier this week.
