The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to convert an abandoned training facility in the Florida Everglades into a detention center for illegal aliens.
Nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz," Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier first pitched the idea of converting the "virtually abandoned Miami-Dade Collier Training Facility."
"This 30 square mile area is completely surrounded by the Everglades — presents an efficient, low cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter," Uthmeier said, adding that, if detainees were to escape, "there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons."
The remote center, composed of large tents and other planned facilities, will cost the state around $450 million a year to run, but Florida can request some reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokeswoman told The New York Times.
In a post on X, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said the “new facilities” to house criminal illegal aliens would “in large part be funded by” the FEMA's Shelter and Services Program.
“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,” Noem wrote. “We will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida.”
“These 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.”
We are 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.https://t.co/NWdAnEUC0h
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) June 24, 2025
