Failed experiment in human suffering: Alligator Alcatraz immigration jail to close

An alliance of environmental groups and immigration advocates has welcomed what looks to be the imminent closure of Alligator Alcatraz, the notorious immigration jail in the remote Florida Everglades celebrated by Donald Trump for its harsh conditions.

State officials told vendors at the facility on Tuesday to prepare for a breakdown of the tented camp beginning next month, the New York Times reported, citing its ongoing cost.

It was revealed in March that Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, spent $1.2m a day opening and operating the camp that quickly attracted headlines for the brutal treatment of detainees, and had essentially given up on a promised $608m rebate from the Trump administration.

At a press conference in Titusville on Wednesday, DeSantis dodged the direct question if Alligator Alcatraz, run by his state’s division of emergency management for the homeland security department (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), would close.

But he spoke as if the camp, which he said had processed 22,000 undocumented immigrants since it opened last July, was about to be dismantled.

“We didn’t build any permanent facilities down there because we knew it was going to be temporary,” he said.

“We were only doing it because the federal government didn’t have the resources to hold these people themselves. Now they’ve gotten a lot of money. Over the last nine months, they’ve been able to work and adjust their operations accordingly.

“If they have beds, other places where they’re able to do it, that’s fine. It was never meant to be permanent.”

A homeland security department spokesperson, meanwhile, told the Guardian in a statement that “any reports that DHS is pressuring the state to cease operations at Alligator Alcatraz are false.

“Florida continues to be a valuable partner in advancing President Trump’s immigration agenda, and DHS appreciates their support. DHS continuously evaluates detention needs and requirements to ensure they meet the latest operational requirements.”

Both Trump and DeSantis, a loyal foot soldier to the president’s fiercely anti-immigrant agenda, have celebrated insalubrious conditions at the jail, which opened last summer on mosquito-infested land 50 miles (80km) west of Miami, and currently holds up to 1,400 prisoners in metal cages.

“It might be as good as the real Alcatraz. A little controversial, but I couldn’t care less,” Trump said after touring the site in July 2025, a month in which temperatures in the Everglades regularly exceed 100F (37.8C).

Human rights groups have complained about cruel and inhumane conditions there, including torture, forced disappearances and denial of legal representation. State and federal officials have denied any mistreatment.

Separately, environmental advocates have pursued a lawsuit seeking the camp’s closure, arguing its hasty construction on the site of a training airport caused irreparable damage to the fragile wetlands of the Everglades and ancient homelands of the Miccosukee tribe.

“Alligator Alcatraz is a stain on our nation and a blight on the Everglades, and I look forward to watching this depraved facility bite the dust,” said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“We’re not going to let Florida and the Trump administration off the hook for the irreparable harm they’ve done to Big Cypress [preserve] and the critically endangered creatures who live there. Now it’s time to push for full restoration and protection of this site so a travesty like this never happens again.”

Bennett’s group, in partnership with Friends of the Everglades, is fighting an appeals court ruling last month that overturned an August district court decision ordering the shuttering of Alligator Alcatraz.

Attorney Paul Schwiep, who represents the groups, said the legal fight would continue even if the camp closed.

“While it is welcome news that people will no longer be inhumanely confined at this facility, the damage caused by this reckless and ill-conceived endeavor cannot simply be abandoned and forgotten,” he said.

“This project was recklessly advanced without any meaningful regard for the remote, environmentally sensitive and ecologically fragile landscape in which it was imposed. The fencing, lighting, paving and other infrastructure – all constructed without environmental permits, review, or analysis – must be removed, and any lingering harm remediated.”

Florida Democratic politicians welcomed its apparently imminent closure.

“The Everglades internment camp’s closure is long overdue,” said Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a US representative, in a statement.

“This monument to cruelty, waste and environmental and tribal lands abuse should have never been built. At my surprise oversight inspection last month, I saw atrocious conditions that Florida taxpayers were forced to spend over $1m a day on, just to cram people with no criminal history into cages and trample our sensitive Everglades.

“This camp isn’t closing because ICE leaders found a conscience. It’s closing because the Trump administration still refuses to pay back Florida taxpayers more than $1bn in tax dollars they basically lit on fire.”

Maxwell Frost, another US representative who has vocally opposed the facility’s operation, condemned what he said was “a failed experiment in human suffering”.

He said in a statement: “From the day Alligator Alcatraz opened, I was on the ground conducting oversight into the inhumane conditions inside this facility, and I went back again and again to expose what was happening and fight to shut it down.

“Human beings were subjected to horrific conditions, denied dignity, and treated as less than human in a facility that never should have existed in the first place. Floridians deserve accountability for every dollar wasted and every abuse that took place behind those doors.”

The Workers Circle, a New York-based advocacy group, said it would continue to hold vigils at Alligator Alcatraz every weekend until the last detainee had left and the camp broken down.

“This cannot become America,” Noelle Damico, the group’s director of social justice, said.

“The only option was to fight this detention center, shine a light on its brutality, demand its closure, and end the abduction, detention, disappearance, and deportation of our neighbors, family members, and friends.”

Damico said her group had helped replicate the vigils at least 18 other “sites of harm” around the country, including detention centers, ICE courts, and county jails.

“Our nation must end the replication of this model elsewhere and a full investigation must be undertaken into the corruption, abuse, and profiteering,” she said.

The Miami Herald reported last year that many private companies that won contracts at Alligator Alcatraz had donated to DeSantis or other Republican politicians.