US moves immigrants to Florida Alligator Alcatraz prison | Immigration Issues

The site, located near the Everglade wetlands, has attracted human rights concerns and lawsuits over its conditions.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced that all immigration detainees will be removed from the Florida prison known as Alligator Alcatrazeffectively closing the conflict zone.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Wednesday that everyone being held in government-run facilities had been evacuated, citing concerns about the onset of the Atlantic hurricane.

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“To protect the illegal detainees, we moved them to another facility,” department spokeswoman Lauren Bis told The Associated Press in a statement.

He did not say how many people were evacuated, or where they were sent. His statement also did not indicate whether the detention center was closed permanently, although reports of the closure had been circulating for several months.

Several unnamed officials told the New York Times in May that the remote site, located inside Florida’s Big Cypress Natural Preserve, was too expensive to maintain.

This place is attractive great light since it was first announced almost a year ago, on June 19, 2025.

Named after the famous Alcatraz Island prison in San Francisco, “Alligator Alcatraz” was said to be a temporary facility that would use its wetlands as a barrier to escape.

“When people get out, there’s not much waiting for them except badgers and pythons. There’s nowhere to go. There’s nowhere to hide,” said Florida State Attorney James Uthmeier.

When it opened last July, Trump visited the facility with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a fellow Republican.

Trump has pushed for massive immigration deportations during his second term, and DeSantis, his former opponent in the 2024 presidential race, wants to use federal resources to fund that.

But the depot, located at an abandoned airport, ran into controversy soon after it began operations.

Native American leaders from the Miccosukee and Seminole nations opposed the construction project as destroying their homes and ceremonial sites in the nearby Everglades.

Lawyers and rights groups, meanwhile, questioned whether the temporary sections of the facility would provide a safe haven from the extreme heat, heavy rains and storms that plague South Florida. The monsoon season runs from June to November.

During its year of operation, Alligator Alcatraz has been the subject of lawsuits and human rights complaints.

Detainees in the cell described being denied access to lawyers, denied medication and fed food full of maggots. The government announced that it would transfer the detainees in May.

“Relocating people from these cruel places is an important step, but it does not take away the harm that has already been done,” said Amy Godshall, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

He helped lead the case against the federal government, regarding the lack of legal services at Alligator Alcatraz. They said the remote location of the prison is one way to reduce the number of people in the prison.

“The state and the federal government must close all of these facilities and commit to not incarcerating people there again,” Godshall said.

Detention facilities like Alligator Alcatraz have been the subject of protests across the country, with critics denouncing the brutality of the crime as routine.

Alligator Alcatraz was designed to hold more than 3,000 people, officials said “Aluminum-frame structure” it was capable of withstanding wind speeds equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane.

Confirmation that all those detained at the facility had been relocated came as the Atlantic hurricane season saw its first storm of 2026: Tropical Storm Arthur.

The storm is in the Gulf of Mexico, where it is expected to make landfall in Louisiana.