DeSantis and Trump administrations discuss closing Alligator Alcatraz, report says

Churchill Ndonwie, Miami Herald on May 7, 2026

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MIAMI — The administration of Gov. Ron Desantis is talking with the federal government about shutting down Alligator Alcatraz, according to a new report.

Citing anonymous sources, The New York Times reported Thursday that federal officials were in preliminary talks to close the controversial Everglades facility due to the high costs of operating the first-of-its-kind state-run detention camp for immigrants.

When the detention center opened last summer, the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimated it would cost $450 million annually to operate. The federal government had promised to reimburse the DeSantis administration for costs related to transforming 6,000 acres of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport into a temporary tent detention center.

The Department of Homeland Security later committed $608 million from a detention grant program to the state, but in court filings, federal officials emphasized that they had yet to make any reimbursement payments and would pay only the per-detainee cost, leaving Florida taxpayers to cover any tab related to the detention center’s construction.

Records obtained by environmental groups show that within the first months of operation, the DeSantis administration burned through $390 million. According to the records, the state had planned on spending more than $1 billion of taxpayer dollars.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management, which oversees the detention center’s operations, and the governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the site’s possible closure. Neither did the Department of Homeland Security.

After spending millions of dollars to hastily erect and operate the site, through no-bid contracts, the DeSantis administration had become cost conscious, arguing last month in a First Amendment case brought on by detainees at the facility that it could not fulfill a court order requiring it to purchase new phones for the detainees to use because it was too costly.

The Times reported that some of the private contractors have been struggling to front the costs of operating the site in the middle of the Everglades.

Since last summer, environmental groups, human rights advocates and the families of detainees at the site have called for the site to be shut down, alleging human rights abuses and harm to the surrounding Everglades wetlands.

The state and federal government have denied the allegations, calling them a "hoax."