President Donald Trump travels to the new migrant detention center “Aligator Alcatraz” at the Florida Everglades on Tuesday.
“We go to the Alcatraz crocodile. It is the version of the east coast, and it should be very exciting, very good,” Trump said when he left the White House on Tuesday morning. “He worked very hard with rum with rum [DeSantis] And everyone, and I think it’s going to be great. “
The Trump administration is turning the remote Training and Transition Airport Dade-Collier in an installation that officials say that up to 5,000 people will eventually have. Authorities say operations will begin on Tuesday. The installation is part of Trump’s efforts to increase deportations by expanding detention capacity. The president has already sent migrants to Guantanamo Bay and the Mega Prison in El Salvador.
President Donald Trump greets while walking towards Air Force One before starting from the Andrews Andrews Air Force base, Maryland, on July 1, 2025.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP through Getty Images
Leavitt said Trump’s visit will be an opportunity for the president to promote the funds for more detention and efforts to promulgate Trump’s mass deportation policy that is in his Megabill that the Senate could vote on Tuesday before sending to the Chamber before the deadline of Trump’s July 4.
“I think his trip to this detention center actually underlines the need to approve the good and beautiful invoice because we need more detention facilities throughout the country,” Leavitt said.
A source familiar with planning tells ABC that it will cost Florida $ 450 million a year, and the authorities say that part of that money will be reimbursed the refuge program and FEMA services.
Leavitt described the remote location of the installation in his informative session on Monday.
“There is only one road that drives, and the only way is a first leg,” he said. “It is isolated and surrounded by a dangerous wild life and a relentless land. The installation will have up to 5,000 beds to accommodate, process and deport illegal criminal foreigners.”
The protesters have signs while protesting the construction of an immigrants dentition center, called “Aligator Alcatraz”, in the Everglades about eightpee, Florida, on June 28, 2025.
Giorgio Viera/AFP through Getty Images
“This is an efficient and low cost of helping to carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in the history of the United States,” Leavitt added.
When asked about the remote and dangerous location, Leavitt said it was a characteristic of the installation to help prevent detainees from escaping.
“Look, when you have illegal and criminal murderers and rapists at an atrocious criminals in a detention center surrounded by caimanes, yes, I think it is a deterrent element to try to escape,” he said. “We know that some of these illegal criminals have escaped from other detention facilities, such as in New Jersey, which I know was recently reported. Therefore, of course, we want to keep the American people safe, and we want to eliminate these public security threats from our streets, and we want to stop them effectively the best we can.”
Florida’s attorney general James Uthmeier published in X that the installation is a “stop store” to carry out the Trump’s mass deportation agenda, claiming that the location saves money in security since it is surrounded by dangerous animals.
A drone view shows the construction site of the next Ice Detention Center “Aligator Aligator” of the State at the Training and Transition Airport of Dade-Collier in Ochopee, Florida, on June 28, 2025.
Bello/Reuters Marco
“You do not need to invest so much in the perimeter. People leave, there is not much to wait for them apart from the alligators and pythons. It is where to go, nowhere to hide,” Uthmeier published.
Among the officials who will join Trump in the facilities are National Secretary of Security Kristi Noem, the governor of Florida, Ron Desantis, and Florida Congressman Byron Donalds.
In a statement published on Monday, Noem said: “The Alcatraz crocodile, and other similar facilities, will give us the ability to block some of the worst cables that entered our country under the previous administration. We will expand the facilities and the bed space in just days, thanks to our association with Florida. Make the United States to be safe again.”
Desantis promoted the installation last week as “as sure and safe as it can”.
The environmental groups are demanding to stop construction, claiming that the government violated the law of endangered species when building on protected lands.
The protesters gathered along the road that crosses the Everglades to demonstrate on Saturday. They included American environmental and native activists who advocate their ancestral homelands. Others were demonstrated against the treatment of migrants.
