The governor’s office said no vegetation will be removed, no paving nor permanent construction. Environmental groups say to expect pollution and impacts to wildlife.

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JACKSONVILLE, Florida — Work is underway to turn an old air strip in the Everglades into an immigrant detention facility that has now been dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Social justice groups aren’t the only ones opposed to this. Now, environmental groups are crying foul.

This week, trailers were placed on the old air strip at the Dade-Collier training airport. It’s part of the process to create a 5,000-bed immigration detention facility on 39 acres of land, proposed by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.

“The perimeter’s already been set by Mother Nature. Some think this is a joke. But we’re serious,” Uthmeier said on a recent podcast.

The Sierra Club Florida has entered the fight, hoping to stop or slow down what it says will directly impact the fragile environment.

“Governor DeSantis and Attorney General Uthmeier are completely wrong to dismiss serious environmental concerns about the Alligator Alcatraz. The Everglades is not a staging area for mobile infrastructure,” Javier Estevez said. He is the Sierra Club Florida Political and Legislative Director.

The air strip is owned by Miami-Dade County, and Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has concerns.

She told reporters, “It is an area that we have invested as a nation billions of dollars for protecting our natural environment, our water supply.”

Monday, the Florida Division of Emergency Management sent a letter to the Miami-Dade mayor to say the state will use the city’s facility under the governor’s emergency powers.

The governor’s office sent First Coast News a statement saying Florida will take the “lead on immigration enforcement.” And as far as the environment, the governor’s office stated no vegetation will be removed and there will be no more paving or permanent construction.

However, the Sierra Club, other environmental groups and leaders of the Miccosukee tribe protested this past weekend near the site of the airstrip.

A truck drives out of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on June 24, 2025, in Ochopee, Florida. Credit – D.A. Varela/Miami Herald—Getty Images

Florida has begun building a new migrant detention center deep in the Everglades, springing into action after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) approved the development. But activists and locals have already raised major concerns, citing environmental and human rights issues.

The detention facility, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” due to its location, was spearheaded by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who said on Monday that the center is part of his aim to “support President Trump and [Homeland Security] Secretary Kristi Noem in their mission to fix our illegal immigration problem once and for all.”

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The facility, located on an airstrip, will be used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to temporarily house migrants that are awaiting deportation. Currently, the site is equipped with “heavy duty” tents and trailers as the Florida summer is set to be even hotter than usual.

The DHS is partnering with Florida to fast-track construction. “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,” Noem told TIME in an emailed statement.

Read More: Trump Set to Ratchet Up His Immigration Crackdown During Next 100 Days

Meanwhile, Uthmeier discussed the center during an appearance on The Benny Show podcast on June 23, sharing that the goal is to build 5,000 beds by early July. He says the construction will be minimal, since the center is in the middle of the Everglades—a national park wetland in South Florida filled with alligators, snakes, and mosquitos. “We don’t need to build a lot of brick and mortar… thankfully. Mother Nature does a lot on the perimeter,” he said regarding security efforts.

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An announcement video posted by Uthmeier features slow-motion footage of snapping alligators.

Pictures of the site show the construction beginning on the environmentally-sensitive land, most recently known to be owned by Miami-Dade County, as law enforcement led in trucks carrying portable restrooms and industrial generators. According to the DHS, the facility will run at a cost of about $450 million a year, with the ability to seek reimbursement from the federal government, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has roughly $625 million in Shelter and Services Program funds that could potentially be allocated for this effort. This is a budget that’s already been “slashed and burned,” though, says Patrick Eddington, a policy analyst in national security and civil liberties at the Cato Institute.

The facility is being built at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, which Uthmeier describes as a “virtually abandoned airfield.” Activists do not agree.

On June 22, protesters arrived at the Everglades to rally against the construction plans, as environmental activists emphasized that the wetlands form part of a protected and sensitive ecosystem. Jared Jacobs, a member of the Love The Everglades Movement, told local media at the demonstration: “[Alligator Alatraz] is not good for our people, it’s not good for our environment, it’s not good for our quality of life.”

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Calling the center an “embarrassment” for South Florida and the country, he said: “It’s a trigger… of a much deeper systemic problem and we’re seeing it here being built literally in the middle of our Everglades right next to the Miccosukee [Tribe] homelands.”

The protest was organized by the activist group Friends of Everglades, alongside the Miccosukee tribe, who are native to the Florida region. One Miccosukkee Business Council member, Talbert Cypress, said via social media that the tribe strongly opposes the center, highlighting how it is set to be built next to 19 traditional Miccosukee and Seminole villages, as well as the Congressionally-authorized Miccosukee Reserved Area.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has also expressed concern about the project, and asked for more details about the potential environmental impact on the Everglades, saying that it would require “considerable review and due diligence.”

Read More: What the Data Reveals About Trump’s Push to Arrest and Deport More Migrants

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Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, says the project should “shock the conscience” of many people, not just for the environmental impact, but due to the human rights implications, as well.

“This is the State of Florida essentially building its own parallel detention and enforcement system to match Trump’s mass deportation agenda,” Gupta says. “This is an obscene human rights violation to even attempt to build a facility in these conditions, but it’s particularly egregious when, right now, immigration detention facilities around the country are facing overcrowding and [other] poor conditions.”

Dwight Bullard, a former State Senator and senior policy advisor at the nonprofit Florida Rising, says the organization is wholly against the building of the detention center, also citing humanitarian and environmental concerns. He says the state, even under Republican leadership, has been looking to “restore the Everglades,” particularly because of its importance in the area’s water system.

“The building of this facility smack dab in the middle of it will have a detrimental impact environmentally on the state, on the region for Miami-Dade, in particular—you’re talking about a direct impact on our water usage in a county that’s home to around three million residents,” Bullard said.

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Gupta notes that ICE facilities already are fielding concerns of crowded detention facilities, and with a state-run facility in an area that is notably hard to reach, she worries those problems will only worsen. Gupta cites potential problems such as “excessive heat temperatures,” noting a concern in how such matters would be addressed.

Bullard argues it’s “absurd” that Gov. Ron DeSantis and his team would build a facility in one of the “hottest parts of the state,” especially as civil rights organizations have already raised the alarm over detention facilities in Florida.

“The moniker of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ shows you the level of carelessness that the DeSantis Administration has for the folks that they intend on housing,” Bullard says.

Meanwhile, Eddington of the Cato Institute points to instances in which Congressional oversight has been a point of tension at federally-run facilities, including the recent arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka who was detained after attempting to inspect Delaney Hall, a privately-run federal immigration detention center that, in March, he accused of violating safety protocols.

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Eddington is particularly concerned about whether or not this new facility in Florida will be used as a “blueprint” for what the Trump Administration may possibly seek to replicate in other red states.

“An awful lot of red-state governors seem eager to one-up each other in supporting what Trump is doing right now, and this is obviously quite a leap by the DeSantis Administration,” he argues, adding that MAGA republicans may be looking to “brandish [their] anti-immigrant credentials.”

Contact us at letters@time.com.

Skyler Swisher Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida and federal officials plan to set up as many as 5,000 immigration detention beds as soon as next week at an Everglades airfield nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz” and potentially at a National Guard training base in the northern part of the state.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday the state-run detention centers will relieve county jails facing an influx of inmates subject to deportation. Florida officials have vowed to aggressively support President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“It’ll be a force multiplier,” DeSantis said in Tampa. “It’ll help DHS (Department of Homeland Security). It’ll help our state and local law enforcement with relieving some burden on resources.”

DeSantis used emergency powers earlier this week to seize a Miami-Dade County-owned airfield for a detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” a move that outraged Democrats and prompted environmental concerns given its location in the Everglades, a place Florida and and the federal government have spent billions of dollars trying to restore.

The state also is looking at Camp Blanding, a Florida National Guard training center located southwest of Jacksonville, for use as another detention center, the governor said.

DeSantis deemed illegal immigration to be an emergency in 2023, giving himself more leeway to use state and local resources.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier touted the planned Everglades facility as “the one-stop shop to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda,” adding that any escapee would face alligators and pythons in the surrounding wetlands.

It will cost $245 per day per bed to house detainees, or about $450 million a year, according to a U.S. official. Florida can request reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA has about $625 million available in its shelter and services program for the effort, federal officials said.

Officials have described the centers as temporary with “heavy-duty” tents and trailers. Facility workers are to be housed in old FEMA trailers. National guard officials are to help run the facilities.

Detainees would include people arrested under the 287(g) program, which allows local and state law enforcement to help enforce federal immigration law. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will also be able to transfer detainees to Florida’s custody.

Central Florida officials have expressed concerns that a spike in immigration-related arrests could max out jails. On Wednesday morning, 3,111 people were housed in the Orange County Jail, which has a capacity of about 4,000 beds. There were 238 inmates with an ICE detainer.

Immigration arrests have surged in Central Florida since Trump’s return to office. In all of 2024, for example, Orange booked about 800 people on ICE detainers into its jail. By the end of May, the 2025 count had already hit 1,314.

The Everglades project has gotten pushback from environmentalists, the Miccosukee Tribe and Democrats, including Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. Conservationists worry the project could damage the Everglades. Miccosukee Tribe of Florida chairman Talbert Cypress said he opposes the use of the tribe’s “ancestral lands” for a detention center.

U.S. Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost blasted the Alligator Alcatraz proposal in a statement, saying it puts “cruelty and spectacle” over people.

“They target migrants, rip families apart, and subject people to conditions that amount to physical and psychological torture in facilities that can only be described as hell on Earth,” the Orlando Democrat said. “Now, they want to erect tents in the blazing Everglades sun and call it immigration enforcement.”

DeSantis dismissed environmental concerns, saying there will be “zero” impact.

“They’re trying to use the Everglades as a pretext just for the fact that they oppose immigration enforcement,” he said. “That’s where you are on the far-left now.”

Last month, Florida officials submitted a 37-page immigration enforcement plan to the federal government that called for detention centers in the south-central and northeastern regions of the state capable of holding 10,000 people.

The potential locations would mostly be near airstrips to “support a seamless detention and deportation process,” according to the plan.

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