On July 1, President Donald Trump visited the Florida immigrant detention compound dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” On July 2, water began spreading across the floor during a thunderstorm; the exterior is a tent. On July 3, the first groups of immigrants facing deportation were set to arrive. The whole idea to build the compound on a hastily commandeered airstrip in the Everglades had been proposed just two weeks earlier.
The new facility was constructed in a span of eight days by the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM). Kevin Guthrie, FDEM’s chief of staff, had claimed it could withstand a Category 2 hurricane. After the tents began leaking during the July 2 storm, FDEM Deputy Director of Communications Stephanie Hartman stated the division had “tightened any seams” that had allowed water to come in.
In footage posted to social media there are visible electrical cables running through standing water. Someone has already been filmed jimmying a locked door using a credit card.
Alligator Alcatraz: the one-stop shop to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda. pic.twitter.com/96um2IXE7U
— Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) June 19, 2025
“Alligator Alcatraz,” a name taken up by state officials, is expected to soon house 5,000 people detained under the federal 287(g) deportation program.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) used emergency executive powers to take possession of the sacred tribal lands from Miami-Dade County, and the state will spend an estimated $450,000,000 a year to run it. Plans for a second site are already underway.
“Alligator Alcatraz” is unusual in that it’s not only run by the state, but the contractors brought in on short notice—in some cases to build the roads leading to the facility—don’t appear to have experience in correctional or detention settings. They do, however, have experience donating to Trump and DeSantis political campaigns and various super PACs associated with the two.
Private prisons contain around 8 percent of people incarcerated in the United States—but around 86 percent of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Private prison operators like CoreCivic and GEO Group saw stocks soar in the anticipated deportation boom of Trump’s second term, and typically you’d find them at the center of something like this; GEO Group has after all donated heartily to DeSantis, and Trump. But typically any sort of new correctional or detention facility takes longer than eight days to build.
Why does this hellhole need to exist? To alleviate the burden that the deportation boom has created on prisons and jails currently accepting ICE detainers, according to various media outlets. The Department of Homeland Security heavily implied that mass deportations wouldn’t be possible otherwise because existing facilities were at capacity:
“Alligator Alcatraz [is] the PERFECT location to detain the worst of the worst,” the department posted on Facebook. “Alligator Alcatraz can be a blueprint for detention facilities across the country. It will provide DHS with the beds and space needed to deliver mass deportations.”
DeSantis has made similarly leading statements about how the facility will “relieve some burdens” and how “the capacity that will be added there will help the overall national mission.”
Except that there appear to be at least 7,500 empty beds in local facilities.
The point is not to keep up with demand for bedspace. The point is to terrorize people at risk of deportation—and thrill right-wing constituents—with the visual of immigrants being marched into a swamp. DeSantis might even be able to push through a third site.
“If we were to do another, it would probably be somewhere in the panhandle,” he said according to Spectrum News. “That would probably cover everybody.”
Image (cropped) via the White House
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