[Spam] First immigration detainees arrive at 'Alligator Alcatraz' in Florida Everglades

The first group of immigrants has arrived at a new detention center 
deep in the Florida Everglades that officials have dubbed 
“Alligator Alcatraz,” a spokesperson for Republican state Attorney 
General James Uthmeier told The Associated Press.

“People are there,” Press Secretary Jae Williams said, though he 
didn’t immediately provide further details on the number of 
detainees or when they arrived.

“Next stop: back to where they came from,” Uthmeier said on the X 
social media platform Wednesday. He’s been credited as the 
architect behind the Everglades proposal.

“Stood up in record time under @GovRonDeSantis ’ leadership & in 
coordination with @DHSgov & @ICEgov, Florida is proud to help 
facilitate @realDonaldTrump ’s mission to enforce immigration law,” 
the account for the Florida Division of Emergency Management posted 
to the social media site X on Thursday. Requests for additional 
information from the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and 
FDEM, which is building the site, were not returned early Thursday 
afternoon.

The facility, at an airport used for training, will have an initial 
capacity of about 3,000 detainees, DeSantis said. The center was 
built in eight days and features more than 200 security cameras, 
28,000-plus feet (8,500 meters) of barbed wire and 400 security 
personnel.

WATCH: Trump visits Florida’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ urges more 
states to open ICE detention sites

Immigrants who are arrested by Florida law enforcement officers 
under the federal government’s 287(g) program will be taken to the 
facility, according to an official in President Donald Trump’s 
administration. The program is led by Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement and allows police officers to interrogate immigrants in 
their custody and detain them for potential deportation.

The facility is expected to be expanded in 500 bed increments until 
it has an estimated 5,000 beds by early July.

A group of Florida Democratic state lawmakers headed to the 
facility Thursday to conduct “an official legislative site visit,” 
citing concerns about conditions for detainees and the awarding of 
millions of dollars in state contracts for the construction.

“As lawmakers, we have both the legal right and moral 
responsibility to inspect this site, demand answers, and expose 
this abuse before it becomes the national blueprint,” the 
legislators said in a joint statement ahead of the visit.

Federal agencies signaled their opposition Thursday to a lawsuit 
brought by environmental groups seeking to halt operations at the 
detention center. Though Trump applauded the center during an 
official tour earlier this week, the filing on behalf of the 
Department of Homeland Security seemed to try to distance his 
administration from the facility, and said no federal money to date 
has been spent on it.

“DHS has not implemented, authorized, directed, or funded Florida’s 
temporary detention center. Florida is constructing and operating 
the facility using state funds on state lands under state emergency 
authority and a preexisting general delegation of federal authority 
to implement immigration functions,” the U.S. filing says.

Human rights advocates and Native American tribes have also 
protested against the center, contending it is a threat to the 
fragile Everglades system, would be cruel to detainees because of 
heat and mosquitoes, and is on land the tribes consider sacred.

It’s also located at a place prone to frequent heavy rains, which 
caused some flooding in the tents Tuesday during a visit by 
President Donald Trump to mark its opening. State officials say the 
complex can withstand a Category 2 hurricane, which packs winds of 
between 96 and 110 mph (154 and 177 kph), and that contractors 
worked overnight to shore up areas where flooding occurred.

According to images shared with the AP, overnight Wednesday, 
workers put up new signs labeled “Alligator Alcatraz” along the 
sole highway leading to the site and outside the entrance of the 
airfield that has been known as the Dade-Collier Training and 
Transition Airport. State officials seized the county-owned land 
where the facility is located using emergency powers authorized by 
an executive order issued by the governor.

DeSantis and other state officials say locating the facility in the 
rugged and remote Florida Everglades is meant as a deterrent — and 
naming it after the notorious federal prison of Alcatraz, an island 
fortress known for its brutal conditions, is meant to send a 
message. It’s another sign of how the Trump administration and its 
allies are relying on scare tactics to try to persuade people in 
the country illegally to leave voluntarily.

State and federal officials have touted the plans on social media 
and conservative airwaves, sharing a meme of a compound ringed with 
barbed wire and “guarded” by alligators wearing hats labeled “ICE” 
for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Republican Party of 
Florida has taken to fundraising off the detention center, selling 
branded T-shirts and beer koozies emblazoned with the facility’s 
name.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/first-immigration-detainees-
arrive-at-alligator-alcatraz-in-florida-everglades