In just eight days in June 2025, a South Florida Detention Facility was built on a remote airfield deep in the Florida Everglades, spanning Miami-Dade and Collier counties. The detention facility, managed by the Florida Division of Emergency Management, was designed to detain up to 3,000 people with an estimated $450 million annual operating cost.
The detention camp’s nickname—“Alligator Alcatraz”—reflects both the swampland where it is located and the frightening symbol it is intended to portray: the infamous federal prison, Alcatraz, which is located on an island off the coast of California and has been closed for decades. Detainees described the harrowing conditions they endured; people were crammed into cages, denied access to potable water, served meals infested with maggots, and swarmed by oversized mosquitoes. Immigration attorneys decried the conditions, as they were unable to even reach their clients. The rush to build this facility—and the broader political strategies and motives behind it—is not just a misguided use of taxpayer dollars. It is a rushed expansion of the state’s carceral system that skirts laws and redirects resources to fast-track anti-immigrant policies—instead of addressing real crises, like the dire conditions in state correctional facilities.
The DeSantis’ Administration Skirted Laws to Fast-Track “Alligator Alcatraz”
In January 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis declared immigration as a state of emergency via an executive order. According to the state statute, during a state of emergency, the Governor is empowered to wield considerable resources, personnel, and regulatory power—including suspending, amending, or rescinding rules—to cope with the emergency. Activating these powers under the guise of an immigration “emergency” gives the Governor a great deal of leeway to enact new laws and mobilize state resources to push policies that target immigrants in Florida. Notably, while state of emergency orders—by law—have historically lasted for 60 days unless extended, this particular order is still in effect and has lasted for more than 1,000 days, as the Governor has renewed it more than a dozen times.
Under the cover of an ongoing immigration state of emergency, the DeSantis administration has sidestepped key state oversight laws. Florida statutes require the Auditor General to conduct a financial audit of all expenditures, as well as a compliance audit of all contracts issued during a declared emergency, to be updated annually until the emergency ends. However, since the original emergency declaration, no such audit has been conducted on immigration-related spending. This is a direct violation of state law.
Powers granted under the state of emergency enabled the Governor to expedite construction of the detention facility by seizing land from Miami-Dade County, issuing no-bid contracts to politically-aligned firms, and bypassing normal hiring standards for state correctional officers. After the county rejected the state’s purchase offer, DeSantis invoked emergency authority to take the land, blindsiding local elected officials with no formal notice as construction began. Reports show the administration has awarded roughly $225 million in no-bid contracts to companies servicing the camp. Florida law typically requires a competitive bidding process to ensure transparency and accountability in government contracts. However, under a state of emergency, those requirements can be waived.
Additionally, no environmental impact assessment was conducted before construction of the camp, and Governor DeSantis has publicly claimed the project poses "zero impact" to the Everglades. Ironically, the same site was once proposed as the location for a major airport, but the project was abandoned following strong objections raised by environmental advocates and the release of an environmental impact study which warned that development would “inexorably destroy the South Florida ecosystem and thus the Everglades National Park.” Despite this history, the administration still proceeded to build a facility designed to detain 3,000 people—with plans for future expansion, again, without conducting an environmental review. Environmental groups have since filed a lawsuit alleging that the state violated federal law, which requires an environmental impact study to be conducted for any project that could “significantly affect the quality of the human environment.” This lawsuit resulted in the preliminary injunction that stopped operations at “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Immigration Detention Centers Expand Florida’s Already-Strained Carceral System
The development of “Alligator Alcatraz” and the potential addition of other detention centers in effect expand Florida’s carceral system, but is outside of the regular fiscal and legislative processes that the state Department of Corrections (DOC) undergoes. While the state constructs these additional detention facilities, it has allowed DOC and state correctional facilities to languish due to a serious lack of investment. DOC has long been plagued by budget deficits (upwards of $189 million), understaffing, lack of rehabilitative programming, and aging infrastructure—which all pose serious threats to the well-being of staff and those who are incarcerated.
Under these fiscal constraints, many who are incarcerated in Florida’s prisons face inhumane conditions, similar to those detained in “Alligator Alcatraz.” Since several of the state’s correctional facilities were built prior to 1980, they are now in dire need of renovations including electrical upgrades, windows, locking controls, plumbing systems, and roofs. Moreover, only 153 out of the DOC’s 639 housing units have air conditioning—which creates unbearable living conditions during Florida’s scorching summer heat, particularly for the large elderly incarcerated population.
A 2022 study commissioned by the Florida Legislature recommended $2.2 billion to be urgently appropriated for immediate repairs at DOC. It also estimated that the state would have to invest anywhere between $6 billion and $12 billion, to strategically plan and modernize the prison system. The Legislature has failed to appropriate the necessary funding to address these concerns. Furthermore, proposed investments have been repeatedly vetoed. In 2022, the Governor vetoed a total of $840 million for the construction of a 4,500-bed Correctional Institution and a 250-bed hospital unit for elderly incarcerated people; in 2025, he vetoed a $300,000 allocation for an air conditioning pilot program from the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025–26 budget.
Despite these dire, long-standing concerns and the unwillingness to devote state revenues to address them, the state has illustrated its ability to mobilize significant resources, capacity, and political will toward what the administration deems as priorities—all the while, deepening the strains on the state’s existing infrastructure.
Building on a Track Record of Anti-Immigrant Policies
“Alligator Alcatraz” did not come out of nowhere; it builds on a track record of actions targeting immigrants. The Governor and Legislature have passed laws and have acted in recent years to entrench anti-immigrant policies and further a climate of hostility toward immigrants. In 2022, Governor Ron DeSantis tapped into a $12 million allocation by the Legislature for a migrant transportation program (the “Unauthorized Alien Transport Program”) and airlifted about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, with flights costing $12,300 per person—totaling $615,000. Although states like Texas and Arizona have similarly transported migrants by bus to other states, the Governor’s use of private airplanes created a spectacle that drew national attention to this callous action.
In 2023, the Governor declared a state of emergency and the Legislature passed SB 1718 to establish new felony punishments for people who knowingly and willfully transport an undocumented person into Florida. The same law also created punishments for businesses who hire individuals without documentation and appropriated an additional $12 million for the “Unauthorized Alien Transport Program.”
In January 2025, the Governor called on the Legislature to convene for a special session on immigration. Lawmakers enacted an immigration bill that provided massive funding for the state’s immigration efforts: approximately $251 million for the State Board of Immigration Enforcement and $48 million for the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. By far, the largest allocation was $250 million in grants to local governments to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), among other harsh provisions which criminalize people who are here without legal documentation.
Ultimately, what began as a seemingly far-fetched idea became a fully operational facility in just eight days. “Alligator Alcatraz” has since become a symbol of success for lawmakers, with more such facilities being planned in Florida. Baker Correctional Institution has recently opened as a second immigration detention facility. In a press release, the Governor stated that it would be “building on the success the state has had with Alligator Alcatraz.” After a federal judge had ordered to halt operations at “Alligator Alcatraz,” this ruling was blocked temporarily, allowing the state to resume operations for now.
“Alligator Alcatraz” indeed was the first of such facilities—driven by anti-immigrant animus—to be established, and it serves as a harbinger of policies and actions to come not only in Florida, but also across the nation. From airlifting individuals to Martha’s Vineyard to forcing people into detainment camps under horrific conditions, policymakers have prioritized spending hundreds of millions of public dollars to finance anti-immigrant policies and expand the carceral system while also disregarding urgent state needs. These decisions are not just budgetary; they also elucidate a troubling set of values which normalize the dehumanization of immigrant communities across Florida and the United States.
