The Florida Everglades immigration detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz” has served its purpose, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday, closing the makeshift facility heralded by the Trump administration and denounced as inhumane by civil rights groups.
DeSantis said the center, which opened in July 2025, was always meant to be only temporary until more permanent detention centers could be secured and federal officials now have that capacity.
“We stepped up because there was a gap, but my hope is that they’ll be able to handle that,” the Republican governor said at a news conference at the facility.
Officials announced a temporary closure of the facility earlier in June and sent all of the detainees to other facilities, saying hurricane season made it unsafe to keep them in the Everglades.
Immigration advocates said the center’s tents were never safe or humane for holding people. Detainees at the facility have talked about their difficulty accessing lawyers and described poor physical conditions, including worms in the food, toilets that didn’t flush, floors flooded with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects everywhere.
They described large white tents with rows of bunk beds surrounded by chain-link cages. The air conditioning could shut off abruptly in the sweltering Florida heat. Detainees could go days without showering or getting prescription medicine.
Advocates for immigrants said the closure of “Alligator Alcatraz” does nothing to stop the harm to people who spend months in custody as their families suffer.
The Florida Immigrant Coalition said the only winners were corporations and contractors who profited millions of dollars as Republicans pushed an immigration emergency that does not exist.
The detention center of tents and trailers was built by DeSantis’ administration in a matter of days. The governor and President Donald Trump said the center was critical to Republican efforts to return people in the country illegally back to their home countries.
“There is no question this mission has made the state of Florida safer,” said DeSantis, noting that 21,000 people were deported through the facility.
Even with the closure of the facility, Florida continues to play a key role with other detention centers and an increased role in helping with immigration enforcement, White House border czar Tom Homan said at Thursday’s news conference.
“Gov. DeSantis did a good job, and he’s going to continue doing what he’s doing to help us make this country safe again,” Homan said. “This isn’t the end of the relationship. This is a continuation.”
Lawyers for the immigrants at the facility said their clients suddenly started leaving for other facilities in South Florida, California, Arizona, Louisiana and Texas earlier this month, disappearing for about a week before their attorneys and families were told where they were sent.
DeSantis said the Everglades airstrip the facility was built around will continue to be used.
Environmental groups sued over the detention center, saying Florida officials never got the proper permits or did required reviews on its impact.
The state and federal governments built the site with no oversight and closed it with no input, but they will still be held responsible even with the site is closed, said Paul J. Schwiep, an attorney for Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity.
“The administration believes it can quietly walk away and leave its mess for others to clean up. The law will not allow them to escape accountability. We will ask the courts to ensure that the environmental damage is fully addressed,” Schwiep said in a statement Thursday.