The South Florida Detention Facility, nicknamed 'Alligator Alcatraz', was an immigration detention facility located at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport inside Big Cypress National Preserve in Ochopee, Florida, United States. The Florida Division of Emergency Management detained non-citizens under Immigration and Customs Enforcement authority from July 2025 to June 2026Payne, Kate. (March 1, 2026) New records show Florida officials burned more than $1.2 million per day on ‘Alligator Alcatraz’: Florida initially sought $1.4 billion from the feds for Alligator Alcatraz. FloridaTrib. at an estimated cost of at least US$1.4 billion in unnegotiated no-bid contracts.
The facility received significant media attention during the summer of 2025 due to its moniker, unique remote environment, political marketing effort, and references to concentration camps. The Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis invoked a standing immigration "state of emergency" to seize a county-owned airfield and fast-track construction without the usual environmental reviews or the traditional collaboration with local officials. On July 1, 2025, President Donald Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem toured the facility for its opening. In June 2026, all detainees had been transferred to other facilities and the vendors requested to vacate the camp, before evaluation of the environmental impact.
Criticism and lawsuits continue for the desecration of ancestral lands, inhumane conditions faced by detainees, its environmental impact, lack of due process or order of removal,Justica U.S. Law. (April 1, 2026) Ramirez v. South Florida Detention Facility (Collier County), No. 2:2026cv00801 - Document 10 (M.D. Fla. 2026) UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA, FORT MYERS DIVISION. medical neglect,Bichell, Rae Ellen, Claire Galofaro, Maia Rosenfeld, Renuka Rayasam, Aaron Kessler, Byron Tau (June 2, 2026). From festering infections to cancer, ICE detainees describe medical neglect. NBC Bay Area. costly missteps, funding, and removing people to a third country without the third country's approval.Walker, Heather; Hall, Darcelle. (May 5, 2026). Detainee at 'Alligator Alcatraz' says US officials took him to Mexican border without paperwork, approval from Mexican authorities. 7News Miami. Human rights organizations and legal experts say the camp did not meet the minimum standards of human treatment required for persons detained under international law due to the declared absence of sanitary facilities, medical care and access to legal advice with potential violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT).Roncallo, Claire. (24 January 2026) "Alcatraz in the Everglades: A Legal and Humanitarian Crisis" Immigration and Human Rights Law Review. An OIG report released in September 11, 2026 by the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security Office revealed widespread violations of detention standards, severe overcrowding, and unprecedented punitive practices, including small outdoor metal enclosures, across immigration detention sites in South Florida, including the Everglades camp. This OIG and other reports indicate that agents routinely placed people in outdoor cages the size of a telephone booth.
Location Located in the Everglades, the Big Cypress area was proposed to become the site of a new Miami Jetport and construction began in 1968 as Everglades Jetport. In 1969, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, author of The Everglades: River of Grass, founded Friends of the Everglades. Construction was halted in 1970 due to efforts of Native Americans including Buffalo Tiger, hunters, environmental concerns related to the Big Cypress Swamp and the cancellation of the 2707 Boeing program. By that point, one runway was built, the facility occupying 39 square miles (100 km2).
Following continued efforts to federally protect the area, Big Cypress National Preserve became one of the first National preserves in the United States National Park System on October 11, 1974. According to Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, since 2019, the federal and state governments had previously invested well over $10 billion in Everglades restoration and protection. The Big Cypress National Preserve provides the Miccosukee, Seminole and Traditional people with permanent rights to occupy and use the land in traditional ways. In addition, they have first rights to develop income-producing businesses related to the resources and use of the preserve, such as guided tours.National Park Service, James A. Goss, Usual and Customary Use by the Miccosukee and Seminole Indians in Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida, National Park Service, 1995, pp. 4-5
Big Cypress National Preserve was designated a DarkSky International park in 2016; the nation's first preserve to achieve "dark sky" status.Chesnes, Max. (July 18, 2025) Darkness is crucial to Everglades habitat. Could Alligator Alcatraz threaten it? Artificial light in a world-renowned "dark sky" preserve is just one of the environmental and human health concerns surrounding the facility. Tampa Bay Times Retrieved September 27, 2025.
History Background
During his second tenure, President Donald Trump and his administration pursued what Trump called for "huge camps" where migrants would be held prior to deportation.American Immigration Council (July 1, 2025). "Senate Approves Unprecedented Spending for Mass Deportation, Ignoring What's Broken in our Immigration System". Retrieved August 18, 2025.
Opening On June 19, 2025, the "Alligator Alcatraz" was announced, which sources later officially named the "South Florida Detention Facility". According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website, the official name is the "Florida Soft Sided Facility South".U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (not dated) Florida Soft Sided Facility South Signs outside the camp indicated "Alligator Alcatraz" as the name.
On its opening on July 1, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem joined DeSantis and other Florida state leaders. Trump said the compound "might be as good as the real Alcatraz," adding it's "a little controversial, but I couldn't care less." Desantis repeated in July 2025 that all detainees had a final removal order, which Eunice Cho of the ACLU stated is "clearly inaccurate."Putterman, Samantha; Ramirez Uribe, Maria. (July 30, 2025) DeSantis said ‘everybody’ at Alligator Alcatraz has a deportation order. Lawyers say he’s wrong. PolitiFact.
Moniker The moniker alludes to both the local American alligator population and the former maximum-security Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. In American slang, alligator bait or gator bait is a racial slur for African Americans, implying they are worthless and expendable. Whatever the intentions, the moniker echoes a long tradition of using alligators in ways that have reinforced racist imagery and dehumanizing stereotypes according to Historian Mark V. Barrow, Jr. of Virginia Tech. In 1919 the Florida Department of Agriculture and Florida State Live Stock Association explicitly discouraged any references to "alligators lying in wait for pickaninnies", describing them as harmful for the image of the state and against the commercial interests of its citizens. In 2020, the University of Florida decided to end the "Gator Bait" chant during athletic events due to "horrific racist imagery" associated with the phrase. The high-security Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary housed convicted criminals and was by far the most expensive prison in the United States, and many still perceived it as America’s most extreme jail.
"The box" cage Within weeks of its opening, a Nicaraguan migrant seeking U.S. asylum reported to WLRN that guards put him into what they called "the box", a four-by-four-foot square enclosure outside in the sun and heat, for several hours, with no water and his hands and feet painfully shackled. Rebecca Sharpless, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Miami, confirmed a similar account from a young man shackled in an outside cage the size of a vending machine. Such practices are associated with the death of Marcia Powell at the Arizona State Prison Complex – Perryville. In March 2026, Senators Jon Ossoff and Dick Durbin, Senate Minority Whip and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, initiated an investigation of the use of shackles and 'the box'. Amnesty International denounced the camp's cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including the use of the ‘box’ in December 2025. In September 2026, the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security Office confirmed the practice of guards placing people in 4 x 4 foot outdoor metal cages at the camp and at other sites in South Florida.
Runway
DeSantis said the airstrip would serve as a "one-stop" shop using the on-site runway for deportation and qualified National Guard members working as immigration judges. Data from the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times show it was used as a holding pen and transfer hub for immigrants still fighting their cases in immigration courts.Wieder, Ben; Ceballos, Ana. (Updated June 17, 2026) ‘Psychological warfare’: Internal data shows true nature of Alligator Alcatraz. Miami Herald. State officials said deportation flights began immediately after opening with a “surge” of immigration arrests, an ICE spokesperson answering, “Fire up the deportation planes.” Sayers, Devon; Rosales, Isabel.(July 25, 2025) Deportation flights from ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ begin as Florida vows a ‘surge’ of immigration arrests. CNN Flights included shuffle flights (in between US facilities), removal flights to a foreign country, and removal related flights (fuel stops and connections), with 50 such flights in 2025 and 108 flights between January and May 2026.Human Rights First. (June 2026) Ice Flight Monitor June 2026 Report. See: Ochopee on page 27. Nationally, there were 13,962 such flights in 2025.. Shuffle flights increased in June 2026.Chavez, Juan Carlos. (May 23, 2026) Lawyers say Alligator Alcatraz detainee transfers are ramping up. Tampa Bay Times. Court documents note deportations from the center included noncitizens of Mexico transported to the Mexican border, although Mexico refused their legal entry.Fredy Hernandez Espinosa v. Warden, Florida Soft Side Detention Center, et al. (June 10, 2026) . UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA, FORT MYERS DIVISION. Case No. 2:26-cv-1258-JES-DNF.Walker, Heather; Hall, Darcelle. (May 5, 2026) Detainee at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ says US officials took him to Mexican border without paperwork, approval from Mexican authorities. 7News Miami.
Closure On June 16, 2026, DHS officials indicated that all detainees had been transferred to undisclosed locations. Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie instructed vendors to remove tents, fences, trailers and other structures from the site, thus initiating a "full demobilization" of the facility and leaving 20 acres of asphalt added without permit to the original 35 acres. Following this declaration, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said her administration would explore transferring county-owned land at the site to the National Park Service or other Everglades restoration partners.France24 (June 25, 2026) Trump's 'Alligator Alcatraz' immigration detention centre closes after less than a year.France24 In July 2026, a Federal judge requested proof from DeSantis that the camp was closed in the context of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project.