In a matter of days, an isolated training airport in the Everglades where endangered Florida panthers roam became a sprawling immigration detention center christened "Alligator Alcatraz,” modeled after the state’s frequent responses to hurricanes and built in part by companies whose owners have donated generously to Republicans.
It’s been less than two weeks since the state seized the property from Miami-Dade County. Massive tents have been erected and a steady stream of trucks carrying portable toilets, asphalt and construction materials have been driving through the site inside the Big Cypress National Preserve around the clock in what environmentalists fear will have a devastating impact on the wildlife in the protected wetlands.
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“We are dealing with a storm,” said Jae Williams, spokesman for Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who is credited as the architect behind the proposal. “And the storm’s name is immigration.”
The first detainees arrived Thursday at the facility, which will cost $450 million to operate and consists of tents and trailers surrounded by razor wire on swampland about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of downtown Miami.
Republicans named it after what was once one of the most notorious prisons in the U.S. and have billed it as a temporary lockup that is essential to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Opponents decry it as a political stunt and fear it could become permanent. 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.
“The proposal was rolled out without any public input in one of the most ecologically sensitive regions of Florida, and arguably the United States,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, which is among environmental groups that have sued to stop the project.
Some GOP donors whose companies helped build and will assist in running the facility are being given seven-figure sums. Five Democratic state lawmakers who tried to visit the site Thursday issued a statement calling it “a pay-for-play scheme to enrich GOP donors under the pretense of border enforcement.” One of the lawmakers, state Sen. Shevrin Jones, posted on social media that they were denied access.
Florida built ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ using expertise from its response to hurricanes
Hot, humid summers; regular flooding; and wildlife that includes alligators and venomous snakes make the area where the detention center is located inhospitable to long-term living.
For the state emergency management staff leading the project, it wasn’t unlike responding to another hurricane, just with more chain-link fencing, and barbed wire stretching more than 28,000 feet, according to state officials.
Florida’s leaders pride themselves on the state’s disaster response capabilities, an expertise sharpened by tropical storms that sweep ashore year after year. Florida had a system and a command structure, as well as a fleet of vendors ready to help set up portable generators, floodlights, temporary kitchens and bathrooms, officials said.
“We understand how to act fast without bureaucracy in the face of any emergency,” said Kevin Guthrie, director of Florida's emergency management division, sitting alongside DeSantis and Trump in one of the temporary shelters during an unveiling event at the facility. “We’re able to translate this knowledge to what we did here," Guthrie added.
Human rights advocates say this is not a storm, but people — people who could be left indefinitely in inhumane conditions.
Uthmeier said the location had the advantages of an existing site and a 10,500-foot (3,200 meters) runway, with the Everglades serving as a natural security perimeter. For DeSantis, the location in the rugged and remote Everglades was meant as a deterrent from escape, much like the California island fortress Republicans named it after.
It’s also another sign of how the Trump administration and its allies are relying on scare tactics to persuade people in the country illegally to leave voluntarily.
GOP donors will get paid for ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ work
Vendors chosen for the project include Lemoine CDR Logistics and CDR Health Care, companies led by Carlos Duart, a major Republican donor who along with his businesses have given millions of dollars to political committees for DeSantis, Trump and other GOP candidates, according to federal records. CDR Companies has been a go-to vendor for the state for years, and it provides engineering, emergency management and health care services across the country.
Duart confirmed his companies’ involvement to The Associated Press but declined to specify the services they’re providing, citing a nondisclosure agreement. Asked if his businesses were picked because of his political support, he said, “we get chosen because we do exceptional work.”
A database of state contracts also showed that Granny’s Alliance Holdings Inc. signed a $3.3 million contract to provide meals at the facility. IRG Global Emergency Management had inked a $1.1 million deal to provide “flight and operational support" services. Some of the company’s vehicles were seen at the facility, according to images shared with the AP.
In a sign of its importance to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, the president toured the facility Tuesday. The White House posted on its social media account a graphic of the president standing besides alligators sporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement ball caps under text of “Alligator Alcatraz: Make America Safe Again.”
The Everglades ecosystem is fragile
In recent decades, $3.9 billion in federal and state funds have been allocated to restore grasslands in the Everglades. The ecosystem was degraded and transformed when a highway connecting Tampa and Miami was built in 1928.
In response to the environmental groups' lawsuit over the detention center, the federal government said in court papers that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hadn’t authorized or funded the facility, which the state built and will operate.
However, Florida plans to seek payment from the federal government.
DeSantis has described it as temporary, with no plans for sewers, and claims there will be “zero impact” on the Everglades. His administration reiterated that stance in court papers responding to the lawsuit.
But opponents still fear it will become permanent.
“If it becomes more permanent, that is a bigger concern since that permanently evicts these species from the site so they can never come back,” said Elise Bennett, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, which also joined the lawsuit trying to stop the construction. “Our concerns are great now and will only become greater as this project proceeds.”
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Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social. Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.