Alligator Alcatraz is an immigration detention facility erected at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport inside Big Cypress National Preserve in Ochopee, Florida.
Announced in June 2025 by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and championed by Governor Ron DeSantis, it is located in the Everglades west of Miami, surrounded by “alligator- and python-infested waters”.
History Governor DeSantis invoked a standing 2023 immigration “state of emergency” to seize the county-owned airfield and fast-track construction without the usual procurement or environmental reviews. The governor mobilized a team of private companies on June 21, 2025, to build the facility to house 5,000 detained illegal immigrants and deployed National Guard to secure the site.
On June 19, 2025, Uthmeier publicly announced the detention center in a video on X, in which he called it “Alligator Alcatraz.” The name was subsequently adopted as the official title of the facility.
Reaction Governor DeSantis argued the facility will help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and local jails cope with federal deportation policy. The facility’s announcement led to a boost in campaign contributions for state Republicans, which led the Republican Party of Florida to begin marketing “Alligator Alcatraz” merchandise.
“There is no water here to bathe,” Leamsy said. “They give you food only once a day, food that even has worms in it.”
The musician, whose real name is Leamsy Izquierdo, said the detention center is plagued by mosquitoes “the size of elephants and that the lights in the facility are left on 24 hours a day.
A Colombian detainee described a lack of medical care and religious restrictions.
“I’m on the edge of losing my mind. I’ve gone three days without taking my medicine,” he said. “They took the Bible I had and they said here there is no right to religion.”
“We’ve sold thousands of shirts, thousands of hats, and thousands of koozies since then,” Florida GOP chair Evan Power told WPTV on Tuesday.
Amid criticism from human rights advocates about the center, Power said he had no moral reservations about the souvenirs: “It fires up our voters because they’re just tired of the Biden Administration prioritizing illegals over residents of Florida and residents of the United States of America.”
Evan Power – fashion icon, Florida GOP chair, and official spokesman for GOP Jesus. WLBOTT imagines his spiritual evolution:
Who Joins ICE?
We’re not talking renaissance men. We’re not talking deep thinkers.
On Thursday and Friday of last week I attended a Department of Homeland Security job fair at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Virginia. I learned about the event while browsing the DHS website in order to find the phone number of someone who’d been detained by ICE. A pop-up ad linked to an EventBrite page, with free tickets readily available.
Customs and Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service were all recruiting at the event, but ICE was the main draw. Far more applicants stood in line to submit their resumes for deportation officer than for any other position on offer in the cavernous room.
Naturally there were a large number of law enforcement types hanging around the convention—men with military fades, moisture-wicking shirts, and tattoos of the bible and the constitution and eagles and flags distended across their arms. But there were also a handful of women ICE applicants and a lot of men of color. The deportation officer applicant pool was, I felt, shockingly diverse—one might say it looked like America. The whole place looked and felt like America….
US President Donald Trump toured the Alligator Alcatraz migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades on Tuesday as his Republican allies in Congress advanced a sweeping spending bill that could ramp up deportations. The facility sits some 37 mi from Miami in a vast subtropical wetland teaming with alligators, crocodiles, and pythons….
What makes MAGA so cruel?
It’s one thing to want to win politically. It’s one thing to want to dominate. It’s one thing maybe even to want to take over democracy and rule in an untroubled way. But cruelty, how can that be something that is almost enjoyed by these people? There seems to be evidence of that happening. And so people are asking that question. I don’t know. It’s just the kind of stupidity and cruelty.
[T]he kind of personality that is attracted to Trump, the kind of personality that does what Trump does, is an authoritarian personality. They tend to follow rules. They tend to um like to be led by leaders. They tend to like hierarchical and paramilitary structures where you have a leader at the top issuing all the orders and everybody falls into line behind them.
