Promoted by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and supported by Governor Ron DeSantis, new words entered the U.S. political and media vocabulary in July 2024: Alligator Alcatraz.
This is a facility designed to detain and imprison undocumented immigrants deep in the Everglades swamps for eventual deportation. It is symptomatically located less than 50 miles west of President Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
Its name obviously alludes to the legendary Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay, but is used to denote its remote location and tight security measures. “We had a request from the federal government to (create the facility), and so ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ it is,” DeSantis said at a press conference, thus effectively adopting the nickname coined by his attorney general.
The governor asserted that these facilities were “temporary and necessary” to ease the burden on law enforcement agencies and prisons. He said they would be a “force multiplier” in the Trump administration’s increasing efforts to detain and deport undocumented immigrants. “Clearly from a security perspective, if someone escapes, there’s a lot of alligators you’re going to have to contend (with),” he emphasized.
The center is supported primarily by funding provided by the Florida government. According to reports, the DeSantis administration has signed contracts worth around $245 million for its construction and operation. It is estimated to cost around $450 million annually.
Through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the federal government has provided funding for the Shelter and Services program, used to finance immigration detention centers. Although the state of Florida has fronted the cost, it is expected to recover it through reimbursements from FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
This fact already presents a first problem. The contracts for its construction and maintenance were awarded without public bidding, which has only generated criticism for a lack of transparency. Some have benefited companies linked to Republican politicians, with the potential conflicts of interest involved.
But there is a second problem: it was built in record time on an abandoned airstrip within the Big Cypress National Preserve, without any environmental impact assessment.
And a third, no less important, aspect. Practically from its inception, various civil society organizations — human rights and environmental groups, among others — have expressed their criticism of the facility’s inadequate conditions and legal and environmental implications.
Indeed, since its inauguration, testimonies from inmates and their families have highlighted the facility’s poor conditions, including flooding, lack of access to and quality of food and hygiene problems, along with practices such as coercing detainees into signing deportation documents without legal representation. They have also alluded to the difficulties lawyers face in accessing their clients.
In this last regard, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit alleging serious abuses and denial of due process. It has also requested its closure.
Native Americans
For generations, the wetlands of the southern Florida peninsula have served as home to the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes. “Rather than the Miccosukee homelands being an uninhabited wilderness for alligators and pythons, as some have suggested, Big Cypress is the tribe’s traditional territory. The landscape has protected the Miccosukee and Seminole people for generations,” Miccosukee Chairman Talbert Cypress said in a statement.
There are approximately 15 Miccosukee and Seminole villages within a three-mile radius of Alligator Alcatraz. Nearby, about 1,000 feet away, is the Panther-Osceola Camp, where Native American members regularly host cultural activities and sacred ceremonies.
Furthermore, its wetlands and swamps are considered sacred to the Miccosukee people, who were forced into the Everglades in the 19th century. “This place became our refuge…. It gives us a space to continue our culture and traditions. And we must protect it for future generations,” said Miccosukee Tribe member Betty Osceola.
A federal judge intervenes
Three civil society organizations — Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Earthjustice — filed a lawsuit accusing local and federal authorities of breaking the law by building Alligator Alcatraz without first conducting an environmental impact study.
On July 14, the Miccosukee Tribe filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit, alleging that the center was built without prior tribal consultation.
“In addition to threatening endangered species like the Florida panther and bonneted bat, the prison impinges on the Miccosukee Tribe’s deep cultural and spiritual connections to the land surrounding the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, where the detention center was built,” the lawsuit argues.
It continues: “Light and noise pollution, vehicular traffic, and other factors pose serious harm to the region’s wetlands and ecosystem and could have adverse effects on potable water. These disturbances also interfere with the Tribe’s right to use the land, including religious ceremonies and medicinal practices, as enshrined in the Everglades National Park Act and the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act.”
On August 7, a federal judge temporarily halted further construction of Alligator Alcatraz in response to a lawsuit citing the prison’s risks to environmental diversity and Native American heritage.
Issued by Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District Court of Florida, the order pauses further building activity including paving, fencing, and excavation on the site for two weeks. But it does not suspend operations.
Another civil rights lawsuit, currently pending, alleges that those detained have been jailed without charges and blocked from meeting with lawyers.
“This development, while promising, unfortunately doesn’t stop the camp or its use. However, it is a good example of how the camp might be closed permanently in the near future: through environmental advocacy, which was the collective activist effort that stopped the jetport from being finished back in the 1970s,”,” said Misael Soto of Artists 4 Artists Miami.
But the new bosses are persistent in their “force multipliers” and have recently announced the opening of two new centers: the so-called Deportation Depot in Florida — a former prison with a capacity for 1,300 detainees — and the Cornhusker Clink in Nebraska, an old minimum-security camp with an initial capacity of 200 people.
