Trump’s billion-dollar ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ immigrant experiment in Florida goes extinct under one year

OCHOPEE (United States), June 26 — The controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center – a costly Florida facility that became a symbol of US President Donald Trump’s deportation drive – has shut down after less than a year in operation, officials said Thursday.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, appearing at the remote Everglades site with White House border czar Tom Homan, said the facility no longer held any detainees and had fulfilled the emergency role it was built to serve.

The facility drew fierce criticism from lawyers, families, civil rights groups and human rights advocates, who accused the government of holding detainees in harsh conditions and denying them meaningful due process.

“Alligator Alcatraz fulfilled the role that it was designed to serve,” DeSantis said, adding that it had helped remove “many, many dangerous people” from Florida and the United States.

The center was assembled in just eight days in June last year with bunk beds, wire cages and large white tents at an abandoned airfield in the Everglades, home to a large population of alligators.

Trump, who has vowed to deport millions of undocumented migrants, visited the detention site after its July 2025 opening, boasting about the harsh conditions and joking that the reptilian predators will serve as guards.

DeSantis said in May that more than 22,000 people had been processed or staged for deportation through the site.

Officials said the last detainees had either been transferred to other centers or deported, after federal and state authorities initially described the removals as a safety measure linked to the start of hurricane season.

Vendors hired to operate the site had been told to begin full demobilization, according to US media reports, bringing down the curtain on an experiment once promoted by Trump and DeSantis as a possible model for other states.

Environmental advocates and the Miccosukee Tribe challenged the project, saying construction at the isolated Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport had damaged the fragile Everglades ecosystem and threatened protected species.

The site’s cost became another flashpoint.

Estimates put the price tag at more than US$1 billion (RM4.10 billion), and the federal government has approved hundreds of millions of dollars in reimbursement, though Florida has not yet been fully repaid.

Legacy 

The future of the land is now emerging as a new fight.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Thursday her administration would explore transferring county-owned land at the airfield to the National Park Service or other Everglades restoration partners.

She said the property’s remote location, limited aviation value and high maintenance costs made it a poor long-term airport asset, while its position beside one of the world’s most important wetlands made conservation a better option.

“Once this facility is decommissioned, we have an opportunity to permanently protect these lands for Everglades restoration and ensure they remain protected for generations to come. That is the legacy we should leave,” Levine Cava said.

A judge barred the Trump administration and Florida officials last August from bringing any new migrants to the facility, but an appeals court ruled that it could remain open while the Trump administration appealed.

Several detainees spoke with AFP about the conditions at the center, including a lack of medical care, mistreatment and the alleged violation of their legal rights.

“From the very beginning, I have raised serious concerns about the ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention facility because people have been held there in inhumane conditions without meaningful due process, while occupying land alongside one of the world’s most precious natural ecosystems,” said Levine Cava.

Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit arguing that the facility threatened the sensitive Everglades wetlands and was hastily built without the legally required environmental impact studies. — AFP