Alligator Alcatraz

The South Florida Detention Facility, nicknamed 'Alligator Alcatraz', was an immigration detention facility located at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport inside Big Cypress National Preserve in Ochopee, Florida, United States. The Florida Division of Emergency Management detained non-citizens under Immigration and Customs Enforcement authority from July 2025 to June 2026 at an estimated cost of at least US$1.4 billion in no-bid contracts.

The facility received significant media attention during the summer of 2025 due to its moniker, unique remote environment, political marketing effort, and references to concentration camps. The Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis invoked a standing immigration "state of emergency" to seize a county-owned airfield and fast-track construction without the usual environmental reviews or the traditional collaboration with local officials. On July 1, 2025, President Donald Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem toured the facility for its opening. In June 2026, all detainees had been transferred to other facilities and the vendors requested to vacate the camp, before evaluation of the environmental impact.

Criticism and lawsuits continue for the desecration of ancestral lands, inhumane conditions faced by detainees, its environmental impact, lack of due process or order of removal, medical neglect, high costs, funding, and removing people to a third country without the third country's approval. Human rights organizations and legal experts say the camp did not meet the minimum standards of human treatment required for persons detained under international law due to the declared absence of sanitary facilities, medical care and access to legal advice with potential violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT). An OIG report released in September 11, 2026 by the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security Office revealed widespread violations of detention standards, severe overcrowding, and unprecedented punitive practices, including small outdoor metal enclosures, across immigration detention sites in South Florida, including the Everglades camp. This OIG and other reports indicate that agents routinely placed people in outdoor cages the size of a telephone booth.