June 29 (UPI) — Several hundred demonstrators protested plans for an immigration detention center, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” that is being constructed on an abandoned airstrip in Florida’s Everglades.
The protest, which was organized by the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Everglades, drew environmental activists, indigenous groups and immigration advocates on Saturday.
NO ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ. Send a message NOW to @GovRonDeSantis and @AGJamesUthmeier https://t.co/8tLilPcRCd pic.twitter.com/jAqUabwkW0— Friends of the Everglades (@FoEverglades) June 23, 2025
They went to the edge of the Tamiami Trail, which is near the site for the mobile units being constructed on the border between Collier County and Miami-Dade County. Alligator Alligator Alley, which is part of Interstate 75, runs 80 miles across the state through the Everglades.
During the protest, trucks carried building materials, industrial lights, generators and portable toilets for an initial 1,000 beds when it opens, and ultimately 3,000.
Florida Highway Patrol, Collier County Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement personnel directed traffic.
Protesters expressed concerns about long-term harm to the Everglades ecosystem.
“They’re building something that is devastating to us from a humanitarian standpoint, from a moral injury standpoint, and from an environmental standpoint it’s just incredibly sad,” a protester told WPLG-TV.
On Friday, environmental groups filed a lawsuit seeking to halt construction of the facility, saying it “threatens the Everglades ecosystem that state and federal taxpayers have spent billions to protect.”
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who used his emergency powers in approving the project, said there will be “zero” impact.
He accused critics of using the Everglades “as a pretext just for the fact that they oppose immigration enforcement.”
“Florida is stepping up to help increase deportations and fulfill President Trump’s mandate to enforce immigration law,” DeSantis posted Friday on X. “Alligator Alcatraz is a secure facility in Florida that will stage criminal illegal aliens for efficient mass deportation.”
DeSantis provided a tour for Fox & Friends on Friday.
“This is going to be a place where DHS has said we need help with the space so illegals can be processed and then they can be deported right from here,” DeSantis said. “This is going to have thousands of illegals and it’s going to increase the ability to do deportations.”
Alligator Alcatraz became known to the public on June 18 with plans to be finished by this week.
Attorney General James Uthmeier has been campaigning for the site with interviews across cable news and posting a video on X on June 19 promoting it as “the one-stop shop to carry out President Trump’s mass deportaion agenda.”
Alligator Alcatraz: the one-stop shop to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda. pic.twitter.com/96um2IXE7U— Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) June 19, 2025
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, opposes the takeover of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.
“Due to the location of this parcel in a critical area, the conveyance of this parcel requires considerable review and due diligence,” Cava wrote in a letter to Kevin Guthrie, the state’s emergency management director. “It is also imperative that we fully understand the scope and scale of the proposed use of the site and what will be developed, as the impacts to the Everglades ecosystem could be devastating.”
The airstrip was envisioned to become an airport with construction to begin in 1968. Work was halted in 1970 because of environmental concerns, but not before one runway was finished.
The land later became Big Cyprus National Preserve, which encompasses 1,139 square miles. The preserve, which also includes swamp, is north of Everglades National Park, which covers 2,356 square miles.
The governor utilized an emergency order in 2023 in response to Cuban and Haitian migrants arriving in the Florida Keys by boat, with the state offering to pay $20 million for the land.
Florida will seek reimbursement from the federal government for the $450 million yearly cost of running the facility, a senior Department of Homeland Security official told the Miami Herald.
DeSantis and Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem have touted the location because it is in a relatively remote area and surrounded by swampland containing alligators, snakes, panthers and other wild animals.
“Alligator Alcatraz, and other facilities like it, will give us the capability to lock up some of the worst scumbags who entered our country under the previous administration,” Noem posted Friday on X.
The preserve also is on indigenous land, and still is home to members of the Miccosukee Tribe.
“Now, all day long I hear noise from the big trucks,” Betty Osceola, a Miccosukee environmental activist, told reporters.
Osceola said she fears there will be more development near the airstrip.
“Find it in your heart to pray for these people,” she said. “That they can be human beings again. If they’re human beings again, this will stop.”
Jamie DeRoin, 45, who traveled three hours from Port St. Lucie to Collier County, told the Sun Sentinel that placing a detention center in the middle of the Everglades was “inhumane.
