Environmental groups joined by immigrant-rights advocates and the Miccosukee Tribe gathered Friday at the entrance of the recently closed Alligator Alcatraz detention center in Ochopee, Florida, to demand a formal investigation into the environmental damage the facility caused to the Everglades during its year in operation.
Friends of the Everglades executive director Eve Samples condemned the $608 million detention center, which opened in July 2025 and operated without a full environmental permit review. “It was a failure, an obscene waste of taxpayer dollars and an abuse of the Everglades,” Samples said at the news conference.
The center was built on land in the Everglades, opposite an airstrip about 45 miles west of downtown Miami, surrounded by the Big Cypress National Preserve — a 720,000-acre swamp run by the National Park Service that is home to alligators, crocodiles, eastern diamondback rattlesnakes, bobcats, coyotes and the endangered Florida panther, whose population is estimated at about 200.
During four days of federal court hearings in Miami in August 2025, Friends of the Everglades presented evidence that the facility caused significant environmental harm, including the paving of 20 acres without the required permits and the installation of new fencing and high-intensity lighting. The bright lights directly affected an estimated 2,000 acres of Florida panther habitat, advocates said, because the big cats are displaced by unnatural lighting during their nocturnal movements.
The Miccosukee Tribe, which has villages near the site, joined the environmental group’s June 2025 lawsuit seeking to halt construction.
Ana María Hernández, civic engagement director for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, also spoke at the news conference, describing in detail the conditions faced by detainees inside the facility. She recounted the story of her cousin’s husband, identified only by his first name, Wilson, a legal permanent resident originally from Cuba.
Hernández said Wilson had been routinely meeting with ICE officials in Miramar, Florida, to renew his legal status annually for 25 years. During a visit in January, he was abruptly arrested and transferred to Alligator Alcatraz. She said the reasons for his detention were never explained. During his stay, Wilson was allowed to shower only every three or four days. On one occasion, she said, he was issued men’s underwear stained with feces.
Wilson spent more than five months being moved between Alligator Alcatraz and facilities in Texas and Louisiana before being released from ICE custody earlier in June, according to Hernández. She said the experience shattered her trust in the United States. “In Florida people are being detained because of the color of their skin or because they speak English with an accent,” Hernández said. “This is how people who have legal status or are US citizens end up in custody.”
Friday’s speakers also noted that — despite the facility’s closure — hazardous materials continue to be trucked onto the former premises while vehicles containing human waste are still driving out of its gates.
In announcing the formal shutdown Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected criticism of the decision to hire sanitation vendors to haul waste away, maintaining that the high construction cost was partly due to the facility’s design as a “self-contained” operation. “They did a really good job of keeping this contained so that it didn’t have that impact on the surrounding environment,” DeSantis said, “especially given what we’ve done to support Everglades restoration.”
DeSantis boasted that the facility deported more than 21,000 people as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. The state-run site cost Florida taxpayers an estimated $1.2 million a day to operate, according to an investigation by the Florida Tributary.