Environmental groups, immigration advocates and a Native American tribe have condemned plans to build a migrant detention camp in the Florida Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”. The facility, located at a remote training airfield, is part of the Trump administration’s push to detain 3,000 undocumented migrants daily.
Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in federal court on Friday, seeking to halt the project over the lack of a required environmental study. The camp, set to open in July, will initially house up to 5,000 detainees in tents, with temperatures regularly exceeding 100°F (37.8°C).
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier defended the plan, saying the swampy terrain—home to alligators, pythons and mosquitoes—provides a natural barrier. “There’s no way in and no way out,” he told a podcast. The Miccosukee Tribe criticised the use of ancestral lands, drawing parallels to 19th-century forced removals of Native Americans.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava expressed “significant concerns” about the environmental impact, noting the billions invested in Everglades restoration. Eve Samples of Friends of the Everglades called the site unsuitable, recalling failed 1960s plans for a jetport there.
