U.S. President Donald Trump will visit a new immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades on Tuesday for what’s expected to be the site’s official opening, showcasing what critics are condemning as an inhumane makeshift prison camp and what supporters are embracing as a national model for aggressively ramping up detention and deportation efforts.
Florida officials have raced to erect the compound of heavy-duty tents, trailers and temporary buildings in a matter of days, as part of the state’s muscular efforts to help carry out Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The facility is located at an isolated airfield about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of downtown Miami and is surrounded by swamps filled with mosquitoes, pythons and alligators. Dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by state officials, supporters say the reference to the notorious federal prison and the harshness of the conditions at the facility are meant to be a deterrent.
“There’s really nowhere to go. If you’re housed there, if you’re detained there, there’s no way in, no way out,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in an interview with conservative media commentator Benny Johnson.
Here’s what to know.
Trump to visit Tuesday
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed on Monday that Trump will attend what’s expected to be the official opening of the facility, which is estimated to cost $450 million a year. The expenses are to be incurred by Florida and reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a U.S. official said.
“When the president comes tomorrow, he’s going to be able to see,” DeSantis told reporters. He added that “I think by tomorrow, it’ll be ready for business.”
The governor, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination last year, said he spoke with Trump over the weekend. He also said the site obtained approval from the Department of Homeland Security.
The site’s remoteness hasn’t stopped hundreds of environmentalists and immigrant advocates from coming to protest what they say is a cruel political stunt that will threaten the treasured and ecologically sensitive wetlands.
State officials say the installation, which could ultimately house 5,000 detainees, is critical to support Trump’s mass deportation agenda, which has resulted in a record-high number of detentions, totaling more than 56,000 immigrants in June, the most since 2019.
Florida is using emergency powers to build the site
State officials have commandeered the land using emergency powers, under a years-old executive order issued by DeSantis during the administration of then-President Joe Biden to respond to what the governor deemed a crisis caused by illegal immigration.
Florida has raced ahead with the construction on county-owned land over the concerns of local officials, activists and Native American tribal leaders who consider the area sacred.
By relying on executive orders, the state is able to sidestep purchasing laws and fast-track the project, which critics have said amounts to an abuse of power.
The orders grant sweeping authority to the state’s head of emergency management, Kevin Guthrie, including the power to suspend “any statute, rule, or order” seen as slowing the response to the emergency, and the ability to place select law enforcement personnel from across the state under his “direct command and coordination.”
“Governor DeSantis has insisted that the state of Florida, under his leadership, will facilitate the federal government in enforcing immigration law,” a DeSantis spokesperson said in a statement.
“Florida will continue to lead on immigration enforcement.”
Environmentalists, immigrant advocates and Native leaders protest
Immigrant advocates, environmental activists and Native Americans advocating for their ancestral homelands held a protest near the airstrip Saturday.
Hundreds of demonstrators lined part of U.S. Highway 41 that slices through the marshy Everglades — also known as Tamiami Trail — as dump trucks hauling construction materials lumbered into the airfield. Cars passing by honked in support as protesters waved signs calling for the protection of the expansive preserve that is home to Native communities and endangered species.
In Big Cypress National Preserve, where the airstrip is located, 15 traditional Miccosukee and Seminole villages, as well as burial grounds and ceremonial sites, remain.
Worries about environmental impacts have also been at the forefront, prompting the Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of the Everglades to file a lawsuit Friday to halt the detention center plans.
DHS is backing the initiative
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Krisi Noem has applauded the effort and the agency’s “partnership with Florida.”
“We are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal aliens,” said Noem in a written statement provided to the AP.
The facility is meant to help the Trump administration reach its goal of more than doubling its existing 41,000 beds for detaining migrants to at least 100,000 beds.
A tax-cutting and budget reconciliation bill approved last month by the U.S. House of Representatives includes $45 billion over four years for immigrant detention, a threefold spending increase. The Senate is now considering that legislation.
A U.S. official said immigrants arrested by Florida law enforcement officers under the federal 287 (g) program will be held at the facility, as well as immigrants in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Under the revived 287 (g) program, local and state law enforcement officers can interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation.
Agencies across all 67 Florida counties have signed more than 280 such agreements, more than a third of the 720 agreements ICE have reached nationwide.
Associated Press writer Gisela Salomon reported from Miami. Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.