Safety and Legal Concerns Raised with Alligator Alcatraz’s Environmental Injustice

A hastily constructed immigration detention center in eastern Collier County has several people talking about safety concerns within and around what is dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. As signs for Alligator Alcatraz were posted at the facility and as far away as Everglades City, which is about a 30-minute drive away along U.S. 41, concerns continued to be raised by South Florida residents. Their drinking water supply is right in the Everglades surrounding the site.  

Everglades Locals Console Families of Detainees 

At the site on Monday night, two Spanish-speaking women were concerned about the reported death of someone inside the detention facility and their loved one’s wellbeing. 

The two women received a call from a loved one inside, who told them someone died, the body taken away from the site. They arrived concerned, seeking answers about their family member who called them,” said Ochopee resident Betty Osceola, who documented the situation live on Facebook Monday.  

Osceola had organized Indigenous-led public prayer within days of the project’s announcement, primarily citing environmental concerns at the time.  

Osceola reported seeing an ambulance go by with the ambulance lights on headed east towards Miami. The ambulance company, National Health Transport (NHT), is the same company that has been contracted to be onsite every day, she said.  

Osceola was at the entrance with the women and a person helping translate. "While we were there in front of the entrance, the four of us, we saw the ambulance return to the site,” Osceola said. 

At one point, Osceola set down her phone during the Facebook live to try to console the women.  
Despite the report of the loss of the loved one, officials later reported no such emergency at the site.  

“There was no death at the facility,” wrote Stephanie Hartman, deputy director of communications with Florida Division of Emergency Management in an email to this reporter at 9:30 PM Monday.   
No one on site could provide details to the women about their family member.  

Conditions in the Detention Center 

Meanwhile, reports of conditions within the immigration detention center, which is continuing to be developed to house 5,000 detainees, are relatively dire by some accounts and relatively humane by others.  

“A recent (video) tour of the facility revealed that detainees will endure harsh conditions related to housing, medical care, attorney access, and due process,” wrote Hector Diaz, managing partner of Your Immigration Attorney, in an email to this reporter. 
The building, which resembles a tent, has already sustained flooding and extreme heat with even a minor storm, Diaz said. 

Florida emergency management officials said the Everglades detention center can withstand up to a level 2 hurricane. But some people are skeptical and there has been no public process or oversight. 

“These conditions will severely limit access to family and legal representation, making it nearly impossible for detainees to properly defend themselves or exercise their legal rights,” Diaz warned.  

Collier County Involvement 

Collier County government officials are reporting that they have no rights or responsibilities regarding the site at the Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport (TNT). Though it is located in Collier County, it was long operated and owned by Miami-Dade County since 1968, said Collier County Communications Director John Mullins.  

The current use of the property by the State is derived from “Executive Order 23-03 Emergency Management – Illegal Immigration,” Mullins said.  

“Collier County has no jurisdiction or authority over this facility,” he maintained. 

Collier County Attorney Jeff Klatzkow reviewed the executive order and the eminent domain order of 1968 and stated the county has “no interest in this property, either by ownership or regulatory.”  

Emergency Management Director Dan Summers was in contact with Florida Division of Emergency Management and confirmed that Collier and Miami-Dade Counties will not be tasked with evacuation hosting or support in the event of a storm, county staff said. 

Summers had reported he first heard of the State’s tour of the TNT in February. 

“In February, Director Summers was informed second-hand and generally of the State’s visit to the Training and Transition Airport. He was not part of that visit. Given ownership by Miami-Dade County, at the time, he assumed that they may have been evaluating it as a staging area for emergency events involving the east coast,” Mullins wrote in an email to this reporter. 

Background on the Site 

First, economic, environmental, and due process concerns were raised during numerous protests in late June and early July. Then, detainees arrived at the facility in Ochopee, a rural area located at least an hour east of Naples, over the Fourth of July weekend.  
The capacity of 1,000, then 3,000, and eventually 5,000 detainees will increase over time with additional bunk beds surrounded by barbed wire fencing.  

Aerial photographs posted online by Friends of the Everglades show significant development and additional paved areas on the 25,000-acre site as of early July.  

Following a lawsuit, state and federal officials have jockeyed back and forth on where the estimated $450 million for the facility is coming from. As of early July, it’s unknown how long Alligator Alcatraz will operate, though it’s been dubbed temporary. Contractors for the project, including CDR companies and IRG Global Emergency Management, have been linked to DeSantis’s campaign financing. 

Legal and Workforce Concerns for Immigrants 

President Donald Trump said he would work with farms to maintain their workforce as Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson was at Trump’s side during their tour.  

Simpson did not return requests for comments on his involvement in the facility or how farms were being protected or likely to be affected.  

“As a result, many in the agricultural workforce are staying away from their jobs out of fear of being detained in immigration detention centers. That fear discourages them from risking encounters with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement,” Diaz said.  

Requests for comments of local farms, including Lipman Family Farms in Immokalee, by this reporter were not yet addressed as of early July.  

Since Gov. Ron DeSantis deputized the Florida Highway Patrol to enforce immigration laws and included counties in enforcement and cooperation agreements with ICE, there are new State powers taken in immigration processes, Diaz said.  

Just as Alligator Alcatraz was announced, Diaz predicted that state-level immigration judges and prosecutors would be appointed to carry out deportations of undocumented individuals. 
“Sure enough, Gov. DeSantis has now declared that National Guard officers can serve as both immigration judges and prosecutors, calling it a ‘one-stop shop’ that includes flying detainees to third countries immediately after their hearings,” Diaz said. 

“This marks a significant and troubling shift in policy, with the state usurping federal jurisdiction over immigration. It’s clear the state is overstepping its bounds, as immigration enforcement falls solely under federal authority,” he added. 

The legal problems for the site are likely to continue to mount, lawyers and legal experts have said. 

“This overreach is likely to end up before the Supreme Court which, given its current partisan leanings, may very well grant states the authority to enforce their own immigration policies. That would result in complete and utter chaos,” Diaz said.  

Status of Environmental Lawsuit  

 Friends of the Everglades, a nonprofit that was formed to protect the same property from development as the world’s largest airport decades ago, was among the first to file a lawsuit in response to the environmental threats of the immigration detention center constructed in the Big Cypress National Preserve. The Center for Biological Diversity and Earth Justice are also on that lawsuit filed in federal court June 27.  

The federal government attempted to distance themselves as a responsible party by backing away from their involvement in Alligator Alcatraz.  

DeSantis had said the project was built in response to a federal request and would be funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to the lawsuit. Trump had marveled at how quickly he worked with the Department of Homeland Security director Kristi Noem. Miami Dade County quickly requested the judge prevent any stop to the project.  

Many people do support the immigration enforcement and policies, but many local people do not support the Everglades location of a detention center, due to environmental sensitivity and billions of dollars at stake in restoration of the area’s environment.  

The judge in the lawsuit, Jose Martinez, has yet to decide whether to stop or reverse the immigration detention center’s development, which has included paving new roads, adding fill and dumping dirt in the nearby water at the entrance of the facility. 

“We are seeking a court order to halt activities at the site until Department of Homeland Security and ICE complete a lawful environmental impact analysis, which would be a public process we believe will show that building a massive detention center in the middle of the Everglades would cause irreparable harm to sensitive wetlands and endangered species like panthers and more,” said Elise Pautler Bennett, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, in an email to this reporter. 

“Right now, we have filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, which, if granted, would put a pause on activities while the court considers the parties' arguments. We believe that is needed to prevent serious damage to the Everglades before it's too late,” Bennett said. 

Continued Tribal Opposition 

Osceola of the Panther Clan of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians organized an Indigenous-led educational and prayerful demonstration at the site drawing hundreds of supporters of all walks of life the weekend after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier had announced Alligator Alcatraz on his social media platform X in late June.  

Since then, the Miccosukee Tribe, the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma have all formally written in opposition to the immigration detention center located within a couple hundred feet of tribal families’ camps.  

The Miccosukee government building, school and at least 16 Indigenous camps, in addition to Gladesmen’s homes, are within several hundred feet of the detention center.  

The tribes had all worked to Preserve the land, in collaboration with local Gladesmen, famous news writer/ author Marjorie Stoneman Douglass, and environmental groups decades earlier. 

The traffic jeopardizes their daily way of life. It is located near the location of the Green Corn Ceremony. Tribal members along with the Jet Port Club members and veterans have also been unable to access vehicles, including swamp buggies, and areas they rent and use since the detention center construction began.