Florida’s abandoned Airport turns into “Aligator Alcatras”

The convoy of trucks carrying tents, building materials and portable toilets are flowing into the virtually abandoned airport in Florida’s picturesque Everglad, at the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

But they do not help to build the next great tourist attraction of the region.

Instead, they lay the basics for the new content of the migrants called “Aligator Alcatras”.

The state legislator was offered an object in the middle of the Miami swamp to support the order of US President Donald Trump’s deportation.

“You do not need to put so much in the perimeter. When people go out, they are not waiting for them, except alligators and pythons,” explains the state prosecutor James Utmayer, a Republican, in a video put in a rock musician and posted in social media.

The new investigative center is being built on the site of training and transitional koi, about 43 miles (70 km) from Central Miami, in the midst of Evergles, environmentally important subtropical swamps.

The airfield, which houses the detention center, is mainly a pilot training, surrounded by wide swamps.

In the suffocating summer heat with the mosquitoes, we managed to advance only a few meters into the connection when, as expected, the guard in the truck blocked our path.

We hear the sounds coming from a small channel next to the connection. We think about whether it is fish, snakes or hundreds of alligators who wander through wetlands.

Despite the fact that the air strip belongs to the Miami Dede district, the decision to turn it into an investigative center was made after the executive order of the republican governor Ron Trooper in 2023, in which she suggested that emergency powers stop the flow of undocumented migrants.

The new center, which, according to the authorities, will be able to post about 1000 detainees and will start activities in July or August, soon becomes a controversial symbol of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

Speaking to a press conference on Wednesday, the landing party hinted that the alligator Alcatras was being built in the middle of the swamp, maybe not the last.

“We will probably also do something similar in the Camp Blanding,” the landingis said, citing the former US Army educational institution over 300 miles north.

He said the government official was “working on this” and will have an official announcement “very very quickly”.

Like Trump Orders the immigration bodies to execute “The only largest mass deportation program in history,” human rights organizations say detention detention facilities become overpowered.

According to data received by CBS News, Immigration and Customs Exercise (ICE), there are record 59,000 detainees across the country, which is 140% above its power.

Betty Osseol, a member of the Mikkosaki Indians, lives near the site and recently participated in a protest against the object.

She suspects that instead of being a temporary site, as the authorities have stated, it will work for months and even years.

“I have serious problems about the damage to the environment,” says Ms Ossola, when we talked next to the channel where the alligator sailed.

It is also concerned about living conditions that the detainees may face.

These problems are repeated

The US Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) told the BBC that the proposed object is “not just cruel and inappropriate. This emphasizes how our immigration system is increasingly used to punish people, not for their processing.”

Even the ice detention centers in the settlements, ACLU said that “have well -documented medical disregard stories, legal access and systemic cruel treatment.”

The BBC Mundo contacted the Florida Prosecutor General’s Office but did not receive a response.

In the video in the social media, UTHMEER says the project is “effective” and “an inexpensive opportunity to build a temporary mark.”

According to him, “alligator Alcatraz”, “there is nowhere to hide.”

The expansion, adaptation or construction of new detention facilities became one of the main problems of the Trump administration in accelerating deportations.

Home Security Minister Christie Noah said in a statement to the BBC that Florida would receive federal funds for the creation of a new detention center.

“We work at the speed of the turbo on cost effective and innovative ways to provide the US people for mass deportations of criminal illegal foreigners,” she added.

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

NOEM says the facility will be funded by the Federal Emergency Agency (FEMA), which is responsible for coordinating natural disasters.

Daniel Levin Cava, Democratic Mayor of the Miami-Deeda County, who owns the land of the Airsrip, says she asked information from state bodies.

The mayor “clearly outlined a few problems” about the proposed airport, namely about financing and environmental impact, the BBC said.

While immigration raids have increased in cities such as Los -Angeles, migrant detention operations seem to be so widespread in the Miami -dede and South Florida county.

Many undocumented Latinos prefer to stay at home because they are afraid to arrest and send to the detention center, the testimony collected by BBC Mundo reports.