Lawmakers visit 'Alligator Alcatraz' after being blocked
[July 14, 2025]
By JENNIFER PELTZ and ALEXANDRA RODRIGUEZ
OCHOPEE, Fla. (AP) — Democratic lawmakers condemned Florida's new
Everglades immigration detention center after visiting Saturday,
describing it as crowded, unsanitary and bug-infested. Republicans on
the same tour said they saw nothing of the sort at the remote facility
that officials have dubbed “ Alligator Alcatraz.”
The state-arranged tour came after some Democrats were blocked earlier
from viewing the 3,000-bed detention center that the state rapidly built
on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland. So many state
legislators and members of Congress turned up Saturday that they were
split into multiple groups.
“There are really disturbing, vile conditions and this place needs to be
shut the hell down,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat,
told reporters after visiting the agglomeration of tents, trailers and
temporary buildings. “This place is a stunt, and they’re abusing human
beings here.”
Cage-style units of 32 men share three combination toilet-sink devices,
the visitors measured the temperature at 83 degrees (28 degrees Celsius)
in a housing area entranceway and 85 (29 Celsius) in a medical intake
area, and grasshoppers and other insects abound, she and her fellow
Florida Democrats said.
Although the visitors said they were not able to speak with the
detainees, Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, also a Democrat, said one
called out “I'm an American citizen!” and others chanted “Libertad!,”
Spanish for “freedom.”
State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, a Republican from Florida, countered that he
had seen a well-run, safe facility where the living quarters were clean
and the air conditioning worked well.
“The rhetoric coming out of the Democrats does not match the reality,”
said Ingoglia, who said he toured in the same group as Wasserman
Schultz. Ingoglia said a handful of detainees became “a little raucous”
when the visitors appeared, but he did not make out what they were
saying.
State Sen. Jay Collins was in another group and said he also found the
detention center to be clean and functioning well: “No squalor.”
Collins, a Republican, said he saw backup generators, a tracking system
for dietary restrictions and military-style bunks with good mattresses.
The sanitation devices struck him as appropriate, if basic.
“Would I want that toilet-and-sink combination at my bathroom at the
house? Probably not, but this is a transitional holding facility,”
Collins said by phone.
Journalists were not allowed on the tour, and lawmakers were instructed
not to bring phones or cameras inside.
Messages seeking comment were sent to the state Division of Emergency
Management, which built the facility, and to representatives for Gov.
Ron DeSantis, a Republican. DeSantis spokesperson Molly Best highlighted
one of Ingoglia's upbeat readouts on social media.
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Work progresses on a new migrant detention facility dubbed
"Alligator Alcatraz," at Dade-Collier Training and Transition
facility in the Florida Everglades, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Ochopee,
Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Across the state in Tampa, federal Homeland Security Secretary
Kristi Noem said that of the Everglades detention center that “any
issues that were there have been addressed.” She added that she has
talked with five unnamed Republican governors about modeling other
facilities on it.
DeSantis and fellow Republicans have touted the makeshift detention
center, constructed in days as an efficient and get-tough response
to President Donald Trump's call for mass deportations. The first
detainees arrived July 3, after Trump toured and praised the
facility.
Described as temporary, it is meant to help the Republican
president's administration reach its goal of boosting migrant
detention capacity from 41,000 people to at least 100,000. The
Florida facility's remote location and its name — a nod to the
notorious Alcatraz prison that once housed federal inmates in
California — are meant to underscore a message of deterring illegal
immigration.
Ahead of the facility's opening, state officials said detainees
would have access to medical care, consistent air conditioning, a
recreation yard, attorneys and clergy members.
But detainees and their relatives and advocates have told The
Associated Press that conditions are awful, with worm-infested food,
toilets overflowing onto floors, mosquitoes buzzing around the
fenced bunks, and air conditioners that sometimes shut off in the
oppressive South Florida summer heat. One man told his wife that
detainees go days without getting showers.
Division of Emergency Management spokesperson Stephanie Hartman
called those descriptions “completely false,” saying detainees
always get three meals a day, unlimited drinking water, showers and
other necessities.
“The facility meets all required standards and is in good working
order,” she said.
Five Democratic state lawmakers tried to visit the site July 3 but
said they were denied access. The state subsequently arranged
Saturday's tour.
The lawmakers have sued over the earlier denial, accusing the
DeSantis administration of impeding their oversight authority. A
DeSantis spokesperson has called the lawsuit “dumb.”
___
Peltz reported from New York, and Rodriguez reported from Ochopee.
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