A group of Senate Democrats and the House of Representatives are pushing the officials of the National Security Department for more information on the use of the Immigration Detention Center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alcatraz Alcatraz”.
In a letter sent Tuesday night to the heads of the Department of National Security, Immigration and Customs Control, and FEMA, the legislators expressed concern that the decision of the Trump administration to use what legislators called a “new model of state immigration detention” could violate the federal law and make the federal government responsible for the conditions in the immigrant detention centers.
The Letter Como As The Trump Administration has embraced The Model of Using State-Run Facilities-As opposed to federal or private ones-to detain nancitizens during immigration processes, including using a shutrtered state prison as an addional site in Florida, dubbed ” Detention Space in an Indiana Correctional Facility Dubbed The “Speedway Slammer” and in A Nebraska Facility to Be street “Cornhusker Clink”.
“Experts concern that this new state immigration detention model allows Florida to create an” independent and inexplicable detention system “that extends parallel to the federal detention system,” wrote the group of eight senators and 57 representatives.
The “Aligator Alcatraz” detention center has been the subject of intense political and legal scrutiny, since it was rapidly built on the site of an airstrip rarely used in the Florida Everglades in June. The Temporary Detention Center, which can currently house 3,000 migrants waiting for deportation, was turned by President Donald Trump and the secretary of the DHS Kristi Noem in early July.
“They have many bodyguards and many police officers who are in the form of alligators. You don’t have to pay them so much.” Trump said as he toured the facilities. “I would not like to cross Everglades for a long time.”
In the letter, headed by Senator of Oregon, Jeff Merkley, and Florida’s representative, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, legislators asked the National Security Department to provide more information about the installation on September 3. They asked the Trump administration to identify the legal authority that allows Florida to manage the installation, confirm the facilities of the federal standards for the treatment of detainees, and outside the line of criteria. The installation.
An ambulance arrives at the entrance of “Aligator Alcatraz” at the Training and Transition Airport of Dade-Collier, on August 14, 2025 in Ochopee, Florida.
Joe Raedle/Getty images
“Leaving aside the concerns of human rights guards, environmental groups and tribal nations, the Department of National Security (DHS) has seen the construction of the construction of this expansive detention center that can violate the human rights of detained persons, endanger public and environmental health, and violate the federal law. We ask that DHS provide critical information for the American public to better understand this plan of detention, law democratic, “democratic law.
Legislators also requested additional information about legal access for detainees in the installation and environmental impact of the site, problems that have been in the center of two federal demands that challenge the installation. A federal judge has temporarily arrested a greater construction on the site on environmental concerns, and a lawsuit on legal access partially dismissed after the Trump administration established a close immigration court to handle the problems derived from the Alcatraz crocodile.
A spokesman for the National Security Department did not immediately respond to a request for comments on the letter. The assistant secretary of the National Security Department, Tricia McLaughlin, said that the installation complies with federal detention standards.
The governor of Florida, Ron Desantis, praised the “Cocodrilo Alcatraz” as an efficient way for Florida to work with the Trump administration to carry out deportations, and has encouraged other states to do the same.
“I know that the administration has asked other states to do the same and expand this type of capacity, and only that call would reiterate. I think it is important. I think it will make a difference,” said Desantis at a press conference on the site in July. “All the purpose is to make this a place that can facilitate a greater frequency and a number of deportations of illegal foreigners.”
Since “Aligator Alcatraz” opened in July, immigration defenders have been pressing for more information about the installation, arguing that the details of custody and operation initially remained murky to avoid supervision. According to the documents published in a continuous demand that challenges the installation, the Emergency Management Division of Florida and the Florida State Guard, together with the private contractors, direct the site under an agreement 287 (G) with the federal government.
“While aliens are under the physical custody of the State, they are for certain legal purposes treated as in the custody of the federal government,” wrote a lawyer from the Department of Justice in a judicial presentation earlier this month.
According to H. Marissa Montes, professor at Loyola’s Law Faculty in Los Angeles, the model used by the Alcatraz crocodile allows the federal government to outsource the detention facilities of the anxious states and private contractors. While the federal government has for a long time in the County prisons and the Penitentiary Companies for profit to house detainees, facilities such as “Aligator Alcatraz” expand the scale of the participation of individual states in federal immigration procedures, said Montes.
“Since the DHS is working directly with the government of the state of Florida in a detention center with alarming implications, the DHS must guarantee transparency and responsibility around the financing operations of the installation,” the legislators wrote in their letter.
With Trump promising to carry out the greatest deportation in the history of the United States, the use of facilities such as “Aligator Alcatraz” contributes to a deterrent effect that encourages self -sports, according to Montes, which directs the immigrant justice clinic of Loyola.
“We have a greater number of people who come to look for themselves because they prefer to deport in a dignified, correct way, than at the hands of the federal government,” said Montes.
