Trump visits ‘Alligator Alcatraz’, as detention centers expand across the US
President Donald Trump made a visit Tuesday to mark the opening of a controversial immigrant detention site in Florida that the officials nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz”, highlighting the administration’s commitment to extend its massive expulsion campaign through a variety of partnerships.
“This installation is exactly what I want each governor of this country to plan to do with us,” the Secretary of Internal Security, Kristi Noem, in Florida said on Tuesday.
The Alligator Alcatraz site is one of the unorthodox means whose Trump administration and support states seek to increase an increase in the number of immigrants arrested with a limited space to keep people while waiting for legal proceedings or expulsion. The effort raises questions on the number of new detention facilities across the United States and on the long-term effect of these projects.
Why we wrote this
President Donald Trump is praising a new unusual detention center of Florida in the Everglades – part of a wider effort in progress to create spaces to hold people taken in the administration expulsion campaign.
The Trump administration has set an aggressive objective of stopping 3,000 unauthorized immigrants per day, according to the media, and the Ministry of Homeland Security (DHS) said a target of 1 million deportations per year. Consequently, immigration and customs application (ICE) had to quickly extend detention capacities, including by increasing partnerships with state governments and private prison companies.
What is the Alligator Alcatraz?
The Florida Attorney General, James Uthmeier, proposed the idea of the detention center in a video of June 19 on X, nodding at the famous Alcatraz prison near San Francisco, now a museum. The Florida detention center is based in an old airport establishment, and the site is bordered by the waters of the Everglades, which house alligators and pythons.
Uthmeier called the “effective and low cost possibility to build a temporary detention center” and said that he had received approval from the DHS plan. Florida is continuing an online immigration application to support President Trump’s agenda.
Florida governor Ron Desantis authorized construction under the emergency powers. The state quickly built the site using robust tents and trailers. Secretary Noem said the site, which will be managed by the state of Florida, will have around 3,000 beds, with 2,000 in another place.
In February, Governor Desantis ordered the State forces to conclude new agreements with ice allowing Florida officers to perform specific immigration functions, such as the detention of individuals until the ice could take care.
DHS claims that the site will cost Florida around $ 450 million for one year and that the State can submit requests for reimbursement to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The demonstrators bordered streets outside a landing track practically abandoned in Florida on June 28 to oppose the official opening. Many have cited environmental concerns and potentially bad conditions for immigrants who are held there. The miccosukee and Seminole tribes also consider the sacred earth. Florida representative Maxwell Frost, Democrat, described the installation of “cruel spectacle” intended to “brutalize, starve and harm immigrants”. The environmentalists continued to stop the plan.
How does the ice extend the detention centers to achieve the expulsion objectives?
The Congress has currently allocated funding for more than 40,000 holding beds, according to the American Immigration Council. The REPUBLICAN Tax and expenses Bill in Congress rushes to succeed by July 4 could increase the ICE annual detention expenses by billions and should considerably extend its detention capacity.
Ice has the legal power to have persons who are in dismissal procedure or dismissal orders. The detention requirements have been extended under the Lake Riley law, adopted earlier this year, forcing agents to hold those arrested for certain crimes even if they are not yet convicted.
The detention options include partnership with governments of states and premises. Ice also extends contracts without integration with private prison companies to release more detention space. In places like Burlington, Massachusetts, a number of detainees have been detained for days both in an ice field office which is normally used for administrative work, according to local reports. Ice did not respond to clarification requests.
I will go Mehlman, director of the media at the Conservative Federation of the American Immigration Reform, supports the role of detention facilities. “If you want to have a significant way to actually execute [deportation] Orders, so you have to keep people prisoners, so you’re sure they can be deleted, ”he said.
What are the conditions in these centers?
The tip of ice arrests has led to widespread complaints of overcrowding in detention centers, including allegations of unsanitary and sometimes dangerous conditions. In Burlington, lawyers told local media that their customers did not have access to showers and sufficient food.
DHS claims that allegations of overcrowding in ice facilities are false and that ice has higher quality standards for its facilities that most American detention areas.
The conditions for detained immigrants have always been bad, explains Eunice Cho, principal lawyer of the national project of the national prison of the American American Liberties Union. But she says they got worse under the second Trump administration.
“Immigrants are in civilian detention, they do not serve time for criminal offenses,” explains Ms. Cho. “Placing them in prisons essentially submitted people to unconstitutional punishment.”
As of June 15, 56,397 people in ice detention – the most since a previous summit during the first term Trump, reports Austin Kocher, researcher at the University of Syracuse. A little more than half – 54% of these detainees – experienced criminal convictions or criminal charges pending. The others were immigration offenders who had no criminal convictions or known accusations of ice, according to the agency.
What type of detention centers monitoring?
Each ICE detention center is governed by internal standards that include food services, medical care and the availability of legal documents.
The ice performs internal inspections of its detention facilities, which are generally preliminary. The Inspector General of the DHS also leads unexpected visits. Others who can perform inspections include the government’s responsibility office and members of the congress.
Congress surveillance was highlighted in May, when a confrontation broke out while a group of Democratic officials tried to inspect a recently reopened ice detention center in Newark, New Jersey.
Federal officials asked the mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, to go after his entry through the door. The federal agents then arrested him. The Bureau of the American New Jersey lawyer abandoned the charges 10 days later.
A great federal jury subsequently charged the representative of New Jersey, Lamonica McIiver, who was also in the establishment, for criminal accusations for having allegedly hitting federal officials on the scene. The representative McIver described the procedure of “political intimidation”.
Legally, Congress members are authorized to monitor any ice installation used to hold migrants without providing “notice of the intention to enter”.
“It is extremely important to be able to offer short -term visits to installations to be able to grasp the real violations of human rights that occur,” explains Holly Cooper, co -director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of California, Davis School of Law. “Because with an opinion comes the cleaning, comes the transfer of people.”
How does ice work with the private sector to hold migrants?
In January 2025, some 86% of ice prisoners were held in facilities managed by for -profit entities. The two main players in private immigration detention are private prison companies, the Geo and Corecivic group.
The two have signed new detention factory contracts with ICE since the inauguration of Mr. Trump. And the stock prices for everyone climbed in the days that followed the election of Mr. Trump.
Government cooperation with private prison companies is not new – tens of thousands of immigrants have been detained in private detention centers under Obama and Biden administrations, although the two also pursued policies to eliminate contracts with private prisons.
