First detainees arrive at Alligator Alcatraz facility in Everglades
The first group of immigrant detainees has arrived at a new detention center deep in the Florida Everglades that officials have dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, according to a spokesperson for state Attorney General James Uthmeier.
"Detainees began arriving last night. Under President Trump's leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people's mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens. We will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida," Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement.
Uthmeier has been credited as the architect behind the Everglades proposal. Requests for additional information from the office of Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which is building the site, had not been returned early Thursday afternoon, according to the Associated Press.
The facility, at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, will have a capacity of about 3,000 detainees when fully operational, Gov. Ron DeSantis said. The center was built in eight days over 10 miles of Everglades. It features more than 200 security cameras, 28,000-plus feet of barbed wire and 400 security personnel.
It will cost Florida approximately $450 million to run the facility for one year, according officials.
Florida will submit reimbursement requests to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), according to DHS which said FEMA has roughly $625 million in Shelter and Services Program funds that can be allocated for this effort.
On Wednesday night, workers replaced the signs in front of the training facility with ones that read "Alligator Alcatraz."
Immigrants who are arrested by Florida law enforcement officers under the federal government's 287(g) program will be taken to the facility, according to a Trump administration official. The program is led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and allows police officers to interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation.
The facility is expected to be expanded in 500-bed increments until it has an estimated 5,000 beds by early July.
Dems visit facility
A group of Florida Democratic state lawmakers headed to the facility Thursday to conduct "an official legislative site visit," citing concerns about conditions for detainees and the awarding of millions of dollars in state contracts for the construction.
"As lawmakers, we have both the legal right and moral responsibility to inspect this site, demand answers, and expose this abuse before it becomes the national blueprint," the legislators said in a joint statement ahead of the visit.
CBS News Miami's Joan Murray reported they were denied entry for safety reasons.
Alligator Alcatraz draws criticism
Environmental groups and Native American tribes have protested against the center, contending it is a threat to the fragile Everglades system, would be cruel to detainees because of heat and mosquitoes and is on land the tribes consider sacred.
CBS News Miami's Joan Murray reported from the Everglades, where she spoke with a Miccosukee tribal leader who emphasized concerns about flooding and health risks.
"For us, our medicine is in this land, and we feel it has protected us, so we need to protect it," Miccosukee tribal leader James Osceola said.
He worries about the environmental and wildlife impact of the new immigration detention center built in the Big Cypress National Preserve. He has spent significant time on the edge of the airfield, which is regarded as sacred land.
The facility is located in an area prone to frequent heavy rains, which caused some flooding in the tents Tuesday during a visit by President Donald Trump to mark its opening.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz commented on the flooding on Thursday.
"When you plunk a flimsy structure like what they've built out in the middle of the Everglades on environmentally sensitive land, in the middle of hurricane season, as soon as a hurricane blows over that thing, it's going to blow apart like matchsticks. During DeSantis' press conference, there was not even a hard rainstorm and it started flooding," she said.
State officials say the complex can withstand a Category 2 hurricane, which packs winds of between 96 and 110 mph, and that contractors worked overnight to shore up areas where flooding occurred.
DeSantis says the facility sends a message
DeSantis and other state officials say locating the facility in the rugged and remote Florida Everglades is meant as a deterrent — and naming it after the notorious federal prison of Alcatraz, an island fortress known for its brutal conditions, is meant to send a message. It's another sign of how the Trump administration and its allies are relying on scare tactics to try to persuade people in the country illegally to leave voluntarily.
State and federal officials have touted the plans on social media and conservative airwaves, sharing a meme of a compound ringed with barbed wire and "guarded" by alligators wearing hats labeled "ICE" for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Republican Party of Florida has taken to fundraising off the detention center, selling branded T-shirts and beer koozies emblazoned with the facility's name.
