Updated July 1, 2025 at 1:38 PM EDT
President Trump visited Florida on Tuesday to tour what's been dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," a controversial migrant detention center in the Everglades that officials say is poised to start filling its bed in a matter of hours.
The president was joined by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state emergency management officials as he toured the makeshift facility, which the state put together within days of receiving federal approval last week.
"I thought this was so professional, so well done," Trump said after touring the center, which features rows of fenced-in bunk beds and a razor-wire perimeter. "It's really government working together."
The facility is situated within the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, an isolated, 39-square mile airstrip located within the wetlands of the Big Cypress National Preserve, next to Everglades National Park.
The site's nickname — coined by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier — references its proximity to the predators of the marshy Everglades, from pythons to alligators to mosquitoes.
"What'll happen is you'll bring people in there, they ain't going anywhere once they're there unless you want them to go somewhere, because, good luck getting to civilization," DeSantis said at an unrelated news conference on Monday. "So the security is amazing — natural and otherwise."
The first arrivals are expected this week
Speaking to reporters before departing for Florida, Trump described the facility as "an East Coast" version of the infamous island prison off the San Francisco coast. When asked if the idea was for detainees to get eaten by alligators if they try to escape, Trump replied, "I guess that's the concept."
"Snakes are fast but alligators — we're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator. Don't run in a straight line, run like this," he said, waving his hands in a zigzag. "You know what, your chances go up about one percent."
The airstrip's roughly 11,000-foot runway has largely been used for training purposes, but officials say it will soon accommodate deportation flights. DeSantis has repeatedly said the state will deputize National Guard judge advocates to serve as immigration judges in order to expedite the removal of migrants — both from the facility and the country.
"So you'll be able to bring people in, they'll get processed, they have an order of removal, then they can be queued and the federal government can fly — right on the runway, right there, you literally drive them 2,000 feet, put them on a plane and then they're gone," said DeSantis.
Uthmeier said last week that the facility will mostly consist of tents and trailers, with no brick-and-mortar construction required. He said it was on track to open with some 5,000 beds — about half of its overall capacity — by early July, which officials confirmed during Tuesday's tour.
DeSantis said the first arrivals are expected sometime on Wednesday, after a security sweep. Noem said that could be within 24 hours.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is overseeing the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration, including by ramping up deportations and arrests and setting a daily quota of 3,000 arrests.
The administration wants to more than double its existing number of beds for detaining migrants nationwide to 100,000 and has framed Florida's newest detention facility as a key part of that effort.
"We are working on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people's mandate for mass deportations," DHS said last week. "Alligator Alcatraz will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida."
During Tuesday's tour, Trump, DeSantis and Noem urged the leaders of other states to come up with their own models for detention centers.
"Florida was unique in what they presented to us, and I would ask every other governor to do the exact same thing," Noem told reporters on the tarmac.
When asked by Trump about the possibility of expanding the Everglades site, DeSantis demurred but said the state is looking into other facilities in different areas. He has suggested Camp Blanding, a training center for Florida National Guard units in the north-central city of Starke.
"Because this is an important part of Florida, we're using the existing footprint of this airport," DeSantis said, referring to Dade-Collier. "All the beds, the medical galley, everything is on the concrete, we're not using any of the other stuff. Now, as you'll see, there's a lot of concrete."
The Everglades facility will cost Florida some $450 million to run for one year, according to DHS, though much of that will be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). While the airstrip is owned by Miami-Dade County, where officials have viewed the plan with skepticism, DeSantis is using his emergency authority to proceed on a tight schedule.
Florida Republicans have embraced the project, with the state GOP now selling "Alligator Alcatraz"-branded T-shirts, trucker hats and beer koozies on its website. Conservative podcaster Benny Johnson — on whose show Uthmeier announced the facility had been greenlit — posted a series of videos from the center on Tuesday morning, including one wearing an "Alligator Alcatraz" hat that he said was "provided to us by the state of Florida."
After the tour, Trump joined Noem, DeSantis, Uthmeier and other leaders for a wide-ranging roundtable discussion about immigration enforcement in Florida and beyond. Midway through the conversation, the people in the room learned that the Senate had just passed Trump's sweeping policy bill, prompting a round of applause.
"You know I'm waiting, listening to these wonderful words — and they are music to my ears — but I'm also wondering how we're doing, because I know this is prime time," Trump said, referring to the Senate vote. "It shows that I care about you, because I'm here and I probably should be there."
The project has many critics
Just as the facility's setup was swift, so too was backlash to it.
In recent days, hundreds of people representing a broad coalition of concerned Floridians — from conservationists to Indigenous communities — have lined the nearby highway to protest the site's development.
Such tactics have worked in the past: The Dade-Collier facility was envisioned as the largest airport in the world before protests and an environmental review convinced the government to stop work on the site in 1970.
This time around, opponents include immigration advocates who are worried about a lack of oversight at the facility, as well as the welfare of detainees being held in tents in Florida's notorious summer humidity and what forecasters predict will be another above-average hurricane season. Officials visiting on Tuesday made sure to emphasize to reporters that the facility has air conditioning.
State officials have said they are drafting natural disaster plans for the facility, with a spokesperson for DeSantis telling the Associated Press that it will be evacuated "if a tropical cyclone with windspeeds higher than the temporary facility's wind rating is forecasted to impact the area."
The project is also opposed by Native American groups, who consider the area their sacred ancestral homeland. Its site is immediately adjacent to the Tamiami Trail, which hosts 19 traditional Miccosukee and Seminole villages, Miccosukee Chairman Talbert Cypress said in a statement.
"Rather than Miccosukee homelands being an uninhabited wasteland for alligators and pythons, as some have suggested, the Big Cypress is the Tribe's traditional homelands," Cypress said. "The landscape has protected the Miccosukee and Seminole people for generations."
He said the state would save taxpayer money by moving the facility to a different location "with more existing infrastructure and less environmental and cultural impacts to the Big Cypress and Tribal lands."
Environmentalists are also concerned about the impact of the facility on the Everglades' fragile ecosystem. The 1.5 million acres of wetlands are home to a variety of endangered species — including the Florida panther, West Indian manatee and American Crocodile — and a vital water source for the region.
Two environmental groups — Friends of the Everglades and Center for Biological Diversity — tried to block work on the site by suing federal and state officials on Friday, saying they haven't put the plan through a federally required environmental review or given the public a chance to comment.
"The hasty transformation of the Site into a mass detention facility, which includes the installation of housing units, construction of sanitation and food services systems, industrial high-intensity lighting infrastructure, diesel power generators, substantial fill material altering the natural terrain, and provision of transportation logistics (including apparent planned use of the runway to receive and deport detainees) poses clear environmental impacts," reads the lawsuit.
DeSantis has downplayed concerns, saying the facility will be temporary and have "zero environmental impacts." A DHS spokesperson described the lawsuit as "lazy," while Uthmeier's office says it anticipated such "frivolous claims and banter from those who oppose enforcing immigration law."
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