Florida in Secret Talks With Trump on Closing “Alligator Alcatraz”
Florida is moving to close the infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center in the Everglades because it has grown too expensive to operate, according to The New York Times.
The embattled facility—which has cost the state of Florida $1 million a day to run—has been beset with allegations of unsafe living conditions, abusive treatment, and protests from Native American groups over its environmental harms. Now the facility that was framed as a huge success by President Trump and Governor DeSantis may collapse in failure.
Homeland Security officials have also deemed the facility too costly to keep running, according to a federal official who spoke with the Times, although no official decisions to close it have been made.
Part of this failure can be attributed to Trump leaving DeSantis without any federal funding for the facility’s construction. While the federal government promised to reimburse Florida for hosting the detention center, no payments have yet been made. The swampy location, cruelly touted by Trump as a buffer for detained immigrants, also made it harder for workers to get supplies, sewage—and themselves— to and from the center. And while there has been no official announcement, the closure of Alligator Alcatraz would be an embarrassing development symbolic of the changing public opinion of Trump’s widely unpopular immigration crackdown.
The Department of Homeland Security and DeSantis’s office have yet to comment on the report.