ICE moves detainees out of Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz amid storm fears

ICE moved detainees out of Florida’s controversial soft-sided detention center in the Everglades as hurricane season began, turning a weather precaution into a fresh test of whether the facility was ever a viable place to hold people. The agency said the transfers were made “for the safety of the illegal alien detainees,” but it would not say how many detainees were moved or where they went.

The facility sits on a remote airstrip in Big Cypress National Preserve, far from the infrastructure usually associated with a large-scale detention operation. Florida opened the site in July 2025 to back President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, and the move immediately drew criticism from environmental groups, tribal leaders and civil-rights advocates who challenged both the location and the conditions inside.

Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that the site was never meant to be permanent, while also saying Florida expected to be reimbursed by the federal government for more than $600 million tied to the facility. Court documents said the Florida Division of Emergency Management spent about $218 million to construct it. That cost, combined with the site’s temporary design and exposed location, has made the center a symbol of the political and financial risks behind the state’s immigration push.

Legal pressure on the facility has been building for months. Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity sued over the failure to conduct a required environmental-impact study, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida joined the case. A federal judge ordered state and federal officials to begin winding down operations, and DHS later said it was complying and moving detainees to other facilities.

The population inside the center had already fallen sharply before the hurricane-season transfer. The first immigrants were sent there in early July 2025, the site was built for 2,000 detainees, and court records showed it held about 1,000 people in mid-August 2025 before shrinking to roughly 330 by the week before an Aug. 29 report. Reports in May had already suggested the facility could begin closing in June, underscoring how quickly the project moved from a signature enforcement site to a case study in logistical strain.

For critics, the evacuation now reinforces the argument that the center was flawed at its core. A detention site in the Everglades, built quickly, challenged in court and vulnerable to storms, was always going to be judged not just by its politics but by whether it could safely function.