A convoy of trucks carrying tents, construction materials and portable toilets flows into a virtually abandoned airport in Florida’s picturesque Everglades, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But instead of building a new tourist site, they are laying the foundations for a new migrant detention facility, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”.
The facility, in the middle of a Miami swamp, was proposed by state lawmakers to support US President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda, reports agencies.
It borrows its nickname from the infamous and controversial Alcatraz Island in California, which was once a fort, a military prison, and a maximum security federal penitentiary.
“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons,” explains the state’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, a Republican, in a video posted on social media.
The new detention centre is being built on the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, about 43 miles (70km) from central Miami, in the middle of the Everglades, an ecologically important subtropical wetland. The airfield where the detention centre will be based is mainly a pilot training runway surrounded by vast swamps, observes BBC.
Although the airstrip belongs to Miami-Dade County, the decision to turn it into a detention centre was made following a 2023 executive order by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, invoking emergency powers to stem the flow of undocumented migrants.
The new centre, which according to authorities will have the capacity to accommodate around 1,000 detainees and will begin operations in July or August, is quickly becoming a controversial symbol of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
As Trump orders immigration authorities to carry out “the single largest mass deportation programme in history”, human rights organisations say detention centres are becoming overcrowded.
State officials say the installation is critical to support the federal government’s immigration crackdown, which has resulted in a record-high number of detentions, totalling more than 56,000 immigrants in June, reports AP.
The Trump administration wants to more than double its existing 41,000 beds for detaining migrants to at least 100,000 beds.
In the eyes of Florida officials, the harsh conditions surrounding the far-flung Everglades airstrip and its nearly 10,500-foot (3,200-meter) runway make it an ideal location to house and transport migrants.
“There’s really nowhere to go. If you’re housed there, if you’re detained there, there’s no way in, no way out,” Uthmeier boasted.
Expanding, adapting, or building new detention centres has been one of the Trump administration’s main challenges in accelerating deportations.
Officials with the US Department of Homeland Security have applauded the effort and the agency’s “partnership with Florida.”
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said the new facility will be funded in large part by the Shelter and Services Program within the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, which is best known for responding to hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Managing the facility “via a team of vendors” will cost $245 a bed per day or approximately $450 million a year, a US official said. The expenses will be incurred by Florida and reimbursed by FEMA, which has a $625 million shelter and service program fund.
On the opposition, Florida Democratic US Representative Maxwell Frost condemned the detention center, calling its apparent use of alligators as a security measure a “cruel spectacle.”
“Donald Trump, his Administration, and his enablers have made one thing brutally clear: they intend to use the power of government to kidnap, brutalise, starve, and harm every single immigrant they can — because they have a deep disdain for immigrants and are using them to scapegoat the serious issues facing working people,” Frost said in a statement.
These sentiments were echoed by human rights and environmental advocates. More than 50 years ago, activists rallied to stop the same stretch of land from being turned into what was to be the largest airport in the world. That pattern is now being repeated, as activists rally to halt what some critics have described as a state-backed “heist.”
“Surrounded by Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve, this land is part of one of the most fragile ecosystems in the country,” reads a statement from the advocacy group Friends of the Everglades. “Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past. This land deserves lasting protection.”
Resembling a nightmarish fairy-tale, the horror does not end here. Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, DeSantis hinted that the Alligator Alcatraz being built in the middle of a swamp might not be the last.
“We’ll probably also do something similar up at Camp Blanding,” DeSantis said, referring to the former US Army training facility over 300 miles north.
While immigration raids have increased in cities like Los Angeles, the operations to detain migrants seem to be so far less widespread in Miami Dade County and South Florida.