Trump Tours 'Alligator Alcatraz,' a 3,000-Bed Detention Camp Built in the Everglades in Eight Days

On July 1, 2025, President Trump toured a new immigration detention site at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, about 50 miles west of Miami, which state officials had nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz." Florida built the complex in roughly eight days under emergency powers, with capacity reported at about 3,000 beds, more than 28,000 feet of barbed wire, at least 200 cameras and over 400 security personnel. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said it would be funded in large part through FEMA's Shelter and Services Program. Trump called the site "so professional and so well done" and joked that detainees would "learn how to run away from an alligator if they escape."

The project marked an unusual arrangement: a state standing up a federal-purpose detention facility at speed, financed through a disaster-relief account, outside normal federal procurement and environmental review. The president's framing of the surrounding wetland as a deterrent drew criticism that detention conditions were being used as messaging rather than custody management.

Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe filed suit seeking to halt operations pending environmental review, arguing the site was rushed through without the assessment federal law requires. The facility operated through 2025 and was later shut down amid detention-condition and environmental litigation.