The sprawling immigration detention camp in the Florida Everglades that became a flashpoint for human rights concerns and environmental damage will close next month, state officials announced this week. Vendors at the facility received notice Tuesday to prepare for dismantling of the tented operation, according to reporting by the New York Times, which cited mounting expenses as the driving factor.
The camp, which opened in summer 2024 on mosquito-infested land roughly 50 miles west of Miami, operated at a cost of $1.2 million per day. When it began operations, Governor Ron DeSantis promised the Trump administration would reimburse Florida $608 million. That reimbursement never materialized, according to reporting from March of this year.
Stephanie Hartman, communications director for Florida's emergency management division, offered a terse confirmation in a statement Wednesday. "As Governor DeSantis stated last week, the South Florida detention facility was always intended to serve as a temporary facility to support ongoing illegal immigration enforcement and detention operations," she said, adding that the state would adjust if federal needs changed.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately comment on its plans. Last week, in response to questions from the Associated Press, the agency stated it "continuously evaluates detention needs and requirements to ensure they meet the latest operational requirements."
Both Trump and DeSantis openly championed the harsh conditions at the facility. Trump visited in July 2025, when Everglades temperatures regularly topped 100 degrees, and remarked: "It might be as good as the real Alcatraz. A little controversial, but I couldn't care less." The camp housed up to 1,400 detainees in metal cages and processed roughly 22,000 people since opening.
Human rights organizations documented what they characterized as cruel treatment, including complaints of torture, forced disappearances, and denial of legal representation. State and federal officials denied any mistreatment of detainees.
Environmental groups and Native American advocates have pursued separate legal challenges, arguing the hurried construction on the site of a former training airport inflicted irreparable damage to the Everglades wetlands and the ancestral lands of the Miccosukee tribe. The Center for Biological Diversity, working alongside Friends of the Everglades, is continuing court battles even as closure looms.
"Alligator Alcatraz is a stain on our nation and a blight on the Everglades, and I look forward to watching this depraved facility bite the dust," said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "We're not going to let Florida and the Trump administration off the hook for the irreparable harm they've done to Big Cypress and the critically endangered creatures who live there."
Paul Schwiep, the attorney representing environmental groups, said the legal fight would continue. "While it is welcome news that people will no longer be inhumanely confined at this facility, the damage caused by this reckless and ill-conceived endeavor cannot simply be abandoned and forgotten," he stated, noting that fencing, lighting, paving, and other infrastructure built without environmental permits must be removed and the site remediated.
Democratic lawmakers seized on the closure announcement. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz called the facility "a monument to cruelty, waste and environmental and tribal lands abuse" in a statement, pointing out that Florida taxpayers spent more than $1 million daily on a camp that the Trump administration refused to fund. Representative Maxwell Frost condemned it as "a failed experiment in human suffering."
The Workers Circle, an advocacy group based in New York, announced it would continue weekend vigils at the facility until all detainees departed and the site was dismantled. The group has organized similar protests at 18 other detention centers, ICE courts, and county jails across the country, according to director Noelle Damico.
Last year, the Miami Herald reported that many private contractors awarded Alligator Alcatraz agreements had made political donations to DeSantis and other Republicans.
Author James Rodriguez: "This closure ends a stain on Florida's landscape, but the real test is whether the state will truly remediate the damage or quietly move on once the cameras leave."
Comments