Washington — President Trump will be paying a visit Tuesday to a new immigration detention center in South Florida that state officials are calling “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the plans Monday and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later confirmed it, saying DeSantis, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Republican Rep. Bryon Donalds of Florida will also attend.
The controversial detention facility is at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Florida Everglades and has its own runway. DeSantis said the site has been modified “within a matter of days” to also function as a detention center, and he expects the site to be operational Tuesday.
“When the president comes tomorrow, he’s going to be able to see,” DeSantis told reporters in a press conference in Florida on Monday. The Florida governor said he spoke with the president over the weekend and that Mr. Trump is “very excited” to visit.
DeSantis called the center an “effective way” to increase the numbers of removals and deportations of unauthorized immigrants as the state seeks to help the federal government’s deportation efforts.
The facility will have up to 5,000 beds to house, process and deport individuals in the country illegally, the Trump administration said.
Protesters have gathered outside the gates as construction work proceeded on the site in recent days.
Marco Bello / REUTERS
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced last week that the detention facilities in Florida will be funded “in large part” by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as part of FEMA’s shelter and services program, an initiative created by Congress to support groups and cities receiving migrants and asylum-seekers released from federal custody along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“There is only one road leading in and the only way out is a one-way flight,” Leavitt said. “It is isolated, and surrounded by dangerous wildlife in unforgiving terrain.”
“They ain’t going anywhere once they’re there, unless you want them to go somewhere,” DeSantis said Monday. “Because good luck getting to civilization. So the security is amazing — natural and otherwise.”
Where is “Alligator Alcatraz”?
The site of the temporary migrant detention facility in Ochopee, Florida, is located deep in the Everglades, about 50 miles west of Miami, in a wetlands ecosystem known as Big Cypress Swamp.
According to the National Park Service, Florida officials in the 1960s proposed building a futuristic jetport in the area to support South Florida’s booming population. The Dade County Port Authority purchased 39 square miles of remote swampland with plans to build would have been the largest airport in the world.
But opposition to the Everglades Jetport grew, and the early work on the facility halted in 1970 after federal report determined that it would “inexorably destroy the South Florida ecosystem and thus the Everglades National Park.”
Instead, in the 1970s a smaller portion of the land was developed into the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, known as TNT, an aviation training facility with only one runway.
Office of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier via AP
The site has about 900 acres of developed and operational land, while the remaining area is managed and operated by the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission.
On June 19, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier proposed using the TNT site for a temporary facility to house U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees. He said the facility could be set up on the already constructed runway.
Last week, environmental groups filed a lawsuit to block the opening of the facility until it undergoes an environmental review as required by federal law.
Hunter Geisel and
contributed to this report.
