A makeshift prison in the heart of the Florida Everglades has been emptied in the face of several lawsuits alleging inhumane and unconstitutional conditions and threats to a sprawling protected nature preserve.
Detainees inside Alligator Alcatraz have been transferred to other facilities as the region braces for hurricane season, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
It remains unclear where detainees were sent, but news of the transfer follows reports of discussions between Governor Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump’s administration officials to close the facility over soaring costs to keep it open. The governor told reporters Tuesday that the facility was “never meant to be permanent.”
The 3,000-bed detention center opened on a landing strip near the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, roughly 43 miles from Miami in the middle of the Everglades.
The project was among several ICE detention facilities that opened under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who envisioned Alligator Alcatraz-like jails across the country, including near airport runways, to boost the “efficiency” of Trump’s efforts to arrest and deport tens of thousands of people from the country.
Roughly 1,300 detainees were detained inside a facility the president once said would hold “the most vicious people on the planet.” Homeland Security, however, has classified most of the people jailed inside Alligator Alcatraz as non-criminals.
Trump’s allies celebrated the facility’s opening last year; supporters flocked to roadway signs for the jail and opened online stores with T-shirts and other souvenirs to raise money for Florida Republicans. Homeland Security also taunted immigrants with an image of alligators wearing ICE baseball caps posted on social media.
Hundreds of Alligator Alcatraz detainees filed federal lawsuits seeking their release, joining a massive wave of litigation against ICE detentions playing out in federal courtrooms across the country.
One lawsuit accuses the facility of blocking detainees from legal counsel and forcing people into “overcrowded, unsanitary, and harsh conditions” with inadequate food, flood-prone cells, and “excessive use of force” from guards that sent at least one man to a hospital.
Another accuses the detention center of failing to perform environmental reviews or obtain permits as required by the Endangered Species Act before or since construction and operation began on a site surrounded by the Big Cypress National Preserve, which protects ecologically sensitive wetlands and a dozen endangered and threatened species.
The parties in that case are expected to return to court this month after an appeals court struck down a lower-court ruling that temporarily paused operations at the detention center late last year.
“State and federal officials responsible for this lawless detention center have to be held accountable,” according to a statement from Tania Galloni, managing attorney for Florida’s Earthjustice office, which is among the plaintiffs in that case. “The cost to Florida’s environment, taxpayers and human decency have been too high to let them off the hook.”
Before she was fired by the president earlier this year, Noem intended Alligator Alcatraz to serve as a cheap, replicable model for state-run detention centers near airplane landing strips.
“The locations we’re looking at are right by airport runways that will help give us an efficiency that we’ve never had before,” she told CBS News last year.
She said she appealed directly to state officials, and “most of them are interested.”
“Many of them have facilities that may be empty or underutilized,” she said.
After touring the facility alongside Noem last summer, Trump joked that “we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison.”
“Don’t run in a straight line. Run like this,” he said while waving his hand. “And you know what? Your chances go up about 1 percent.”
Noem’s successor, Markwayne Mullin, has denied any near-term plans to close Alligator Alcatraz while also admitting it faces weather-related “vulnerabilities.”
Homeland Security, which runs the center in partnership with the Florida Division of Emergency Management, also denied it was “pressuring the state to cease operations” at the jail.
“Florida continues to be a valuable partner in advancing President Trump’s immigration agenda, and DHS appreciates their support,” the spokesperson told The Independent earlier this month. “DHS continuously evaluates detention needs and requirements to ensure they meet the latest operational requirements.”
DHS officials repeatedly insisted that the facility is a state-run operation, though court records appear to show that the state sought and received federal funding for the project, along with guidance on how those funds can be spent.
Administration officials have also repeatedly refuted allegations of abuse at the facility and encouraged immigrants to “self-deport” to avoid detention.
“Alligator Alcatraz is a stain on our nation and a blight on the Everglades, and I look forward to watching this depraved facility bite the dust,” said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, which joined the lawsuit to close the jail.
“We’re not going to let Florida and the Trump administration off the hook for the irreparable harm they’ve done to Big Cypress and the critically endangered creatures who live there,” she added.
