Florida's abandoned airport has become Alcatraz's Alligator

A convoy of trucks, bearing tents, building materials and portable toilets, flows into a practically abandoned airport in the picturesque Everglades of Florida, the subject of UNESCO World Heritage Site.

But they do not help to build the next major tourist attraction in the region.

Instead, they lay the foundations for a new migrant retention facility called “Alga Alcaraz Aligator”.

The facility, in the middle of the marsh in Miami, was proposed by state -owned MPs to support the US President Donald Trump's President President.

“You don't have to invest so much in the perimeter. If people get out, you don't have a lot of them, except alligators and pythons,” explains the state prosecutor James Utmeier, a republican, in a video of rock music and published on social media.

The new detention center is being built at the site of the Dade-Collier training and transitional airport, about 43 miles (70 km) from Central Miami, in the middle of Everglades, an environmentally important subtropical wetland.

The airport, where the Center for Detention will be based, is a major pilot training track surrounded by huge swamps.

In the suffocating summer mosquito heat, we were able to enter just a few meters into the compound when, as expected, a truck guard blocks our path.

We hear sounds coming from a small channel to the compound. We are wondering if fish, snakes or hundreds of alligators go around the humid area.

Although the airport belongs to the Miami-Dad County, the decision to turn it into a detention center was taken after an enforcement order in 2023 by Republican governor Ron Ron, citing emergency forces to overcome the flow of untouched migrants.

The new center, which, according to the authorities, will have the capacity to accommodate about 1,000 detainees and will launch operations in July or August, is quickly becoming a controversial symbol of the Trump Administration Immigration Policy.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, the landing hinted that alligator Alcatraz was built in the middle of the swamp may not be the last.

“We are likely to do something like the camp,” Zadanis said, citing a former US Army training facility over 300 miles north.

He said the civil servant “works on this” and will have an official message “very, very quickly”.

Trump commands immigration authorities to perform “The largest mass deportment program in history,” human rights organizations claim that detention centers are becoming overpopulated.

According to data obtained from CBS News, immigration and customs execution (ICE) have a record 59,000 detainees across the country, 140% above its capacity.

Betty Oseola, a member of the Miccosukee Indians, lives near the site and has recently participated in a protest against the facility.

She suspects that instead of being a temporary place, as the authorities have stated, he will work for months or even years.

“I have serious concerns about the environmental damage,” G -Ozela tells us as we talked to a channel where the alligator was swimming.

She is also concerned about living conditions with which detainees can face the new facility.

These concerns are voiced by environmental organizations such as Everglades friends and human rights organizations

Florida's US Civil Freedom Union (ACLU) told the BBC that the proposed facility “is not just cruel and absurd. It emphasizes how our immigration system is increasingly used to punish people rather than process them.”

Even ice retention centers in the settlements, ACLU said “have well -documented medical neglect stories, refusal of legal access and systematic abuse.”

The BBC Mundo contacted Florida General Prosecutor, but did not receive an answer.

In the social media video, Uthmeier says the project is “effective” and “the opportunity for low -cost prices for the construction of temporary retention”.

With the “aligator alkatraz,” he says, there will be no “no go anywhere, to hide anywhere.”

The expansion, adaptation or construction of new detention centers is one of the main challenges of Trump's administration in accelerating deportations.

Interior Security Secretary, Christie, Nobody, said in a statement sent to the BBC that Florida would receive federal funds to create the new detention center.

“We are working with a turbo speed on profitable and innovative ways to achieve the term of the American people for the mass deportation of criminal illegal aliens,” she added.

“We will expand the bed facilities and space for days, thanks to our partnership with Florida.”

Noem says the facility will be funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is responsible for disasters coordination.

Daniela Levine Kava, the Democratic Mayor of Miami-Dadd District, who owns the land at the airport, says she has requested information from state authorities.

The mayor “clearly stated several concerns” about the proposed use of the airport, namely about financing and environmental impact, a BBC report said.

While immigration raids have increased in cities like Los Angeles, migrant retention operations seem to be so widespread in Miami Dede County and South Florida.

Many undocumented Latin Americans prefer to stay home because they are afraid of being arrested and sent to detention centers, according to certificates gathered by BBC Mundo.