Trump tours ‘incredible’ new ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ ICE detention center for ‘most vicious’ illegal migrants and gives wild alligator-dodging advice
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President Donald Trump toured a newly constructed migrant detention facility deep in the Florida Everglades – nicknamed ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ – praising its remote, high-security design and promising it would soon house what he called ‘the most menacing migrants, the most vicious people on the planet.’
‘It is not a place I want to go hiking any time soon,’ Trump said. ‘Very soon this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants, the most vicious people on the planet. We’re surrounded by miles of swamp land and the only way out is deportation.’
Trump said he’d like to see similar facilities in ‘many states,’ adding Florida would getting a second one ‘and probably a couple more.’
‘At some point they might morph into a system where you’re going to keep it for a long time,’ he added.
‘The incredible thing is picking the site because the site was one of the most natural sites. It might be as good as the real Alcatraz. Well, that’s a spooky one too. That’s a tough site. So I really think it could last as long as they want to have,’ he said.
The president noted that ‘I couldn’t care less’ that the facilities were controversial.
Trump looked visibly pleased with the setup during his tour, observing stacks of bunk beds behind chain-linked fencing inside an air conditioned tent in a Florida swamp.
The president said any migrant being processed into the facility who wanted to return to their home country would be allowed to do so. And he said he would be making a decision on exempting farm workers and construction workers in the next few weeks.
‘We’re going to take care of our farmers, hotel workers and various other people. We are working on it now,’ Trump said during his tour. ‘We have a great feeling for the farmer and others in the same position and give them responsibility for people. We’ll have a system of signing them up so they don’t have to go. They can be here legally. They can pay taxes and everything else. They aren’t getting citizenship but they get other things.’
Trump also said he approved a plan from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to deputize Florida National Guard members as judges, giving them the power to decide which migrants should be deported. DeSantis argues it would speed up the deportation process.
‘Yes, he has my approval. That was not too hard to get,’ Trump said.
President President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (left), and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (right) tour a migrant detention center, dubbed ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport
Trump also bragged about his own record on removing illegal immigrants from the country and got in an insult to his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
‘Biden wanted me in here,’ Trump said, gesturing around the tent. ‘It didn’t work out that way. He wanted me in here.’
Trump has long claimed his Democratic rivals wanted to ‘lock him up’ and that he is the victim of a government conspiracy.
On his tour Tuesday, he was accompanied Gov. DeSantis – with whom he had a bitter rivalry in the 2024 Republican presidential primary – and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
The president said he and DeSantis now had a strong relationship.
‘It’s a ten, 9.9. A couple little wounds. I think we have a 10. We get along great,’ he said.
DeSantis echoed his remarks: ‘You can call him at any time and he wants to be helpful for governors. I can tell you that.’
Trump, tieless and wearing a red ‘Gulf of America’ hat, arrived at the facility’s airstrip – the same route migrants will enter and exit the facility – on a hot, steamy Florida day.
An alligator was spotted swimming near the detention center ahead of Trump’s arrival. Migrants will be brought in after the presidential visit.
Democrats have slammed the facility as a ‘makeshift prison camp,’ while environmentalists have questioned its impact on the local climates and Native Americans protested it being built on sacred ground.
President Trump, Gov. DeSantis and Secretary Noem examine the facility’s set up
A general view at a temporary migrant detention center known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
An alligator swims in water, as preparation is underway at the entrance road of a temporary migrant detention center, informally known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz’, ahead of Trump’s visit
The controversial detention facility was spearheaded by Florida Republican leaders and garnered its nickname due to its location: it sits about 37 miles from Miami in the middle of a swamp surrounded by snakes and alligators — and in an area of the state that is prone to hurricanes.
Trump praised the facility.
‘We’re arresting the worst of the worst,’ he told reporters in Florida. ‘We’re getting these monsters out of the United States, out of Florida, out of all the places that they are in.’
Democrats railed against the facility and environmental groups have sued to try and stop its opening.
‘It’s like a theatricalization of cruelty,’ Maria Asuncion Bilbao, Florida campaign coordinator at the immigration advocacy group American Friends Service Committee told the Associated Press.
Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Democrat from Orlando, called the facility a ‘makeshift prison camp.’
As Trump arrived Tuesday, supporters of the camp and its detractors gathered outside.
Supporter Bob Knust arrived outside the facility with a placard proclaiming: ‘We Love Daddy Trump.’
The registered Democrat told DailyMail.com: ‘I’m here because I want to support the President. All these little tactics from the Democratic Party are backfiring. Nobody cares about that.
‘And so the bottom line is that I wanted to share with him that we here in Florida appreciate what he is doing.’
‘People who are in this country who are criminals, we got to get them out. It’s insanity., I don’t think any country would put up with that. We certainly shouldn’t.’
But Phyllis Andrews, from Naples, Florida, held up a sign with the word ICE struck through with the line.
Andrews, who said she has helped more than 100 people become US citizens, said outside the gates to the new facility: ‘I have an immigrant friend from Haiti I am helping and I would be devastated if he were picked up and put in there.
‘He’s an asylum seeker. He came here legally, but they are arresting people like him.
‘My message to President Trump would be, stay away from the Everglades. We don’t need a prison here,’ she added.
Zac Cosner, from Miami predicted that nce the prison is open it will be here for good. ‘It’s not going away. Once these things are built, they’re built.. set in stone. And this is due to be a blight on the landscape.
Trump-supporting registered Democrat Bob Knust turned up outside Alligator Alcatraz to show his support for it
‘My message to President Trump would be, stay away from the Everglades. We don’t need a prison here,’ said Phyllis Andrews from Naples, Florida
Protestors greeted President Trump when he arrived Tuesday at the prison camp dubbed Alligator Alcatraz
Miccosukee tribal member Betty Osceola told DailyMail.com: ‘I am concerned for the impact on my people, the environmental damage that could be caused by this site’
‘Putting a concentration camp here is the worst thing I can imagine.’
Miccosukee tribal member Betty Osceola, who lives in the area, told DailyMail.com the day before Trump’s arrival: ‘I am concerned for the impact on my people, the environmental damage that could be caused by this site.’
Towards the end of Trump’s visit, roughly 40 more protestors descended on the entrance gates and chanted their objections. One chant was :’F*** racist police.’ At that point, over a loudhailer from a police vehicle, the response came: ‘Nice chant.’
Trump is bringing even more attention to the new camp with his visit.
He was joined by Rep. Byron Donalds, whom Trump endorsed to replace the term-limited DeSantis. That endorsement came as DeSantis wife, Casey, is mulling her own gubernatorial bid.
DeSantis greeted the president at the airport and Trump told him he did a ‘great job’ on the facility.
The president, ahead of his departure, told reporters the trip will be ‘very exciting and very good.’
And he showed he was ready for any potential animal danger.
Trump said the inmates will be taught how to run away from the alligators that inhabit the area.
‘You know, the snakes are fast, but alligators, we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator. Okay? If they escape prison, how to run away. Don’t run in a straight line. Look like this,’ he told reporters on the South Lawn as snaked his hand back-and-forth in a zig zag pattern.
‘And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%. Not a good thing,’ he said.
It’s a quick trip and Trump will return to the White House on Tuesday afternoon to continue to push the Senate to pass his ‘big, beautiful bill’ that will fund the government.
President President Donald Trump (center), flanked by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (left), and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (right), tours a migrant detention center, dubbed ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
President President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem arrive at the detention center
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speak to reporters as Trump arrives at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport to tour a migrant center
The $450 million-per-year detention facility, which will be able to hold up to 3,000 undocumented immigrants, was built in just seven days.
There are only tents and trailers – no brick-or-mortar buildings. It was constructed on land belonging to Miami-Dade County and seized by state officials over local leaders’ objections.
It sits next to an 11,000 foot airstrip. DeSantis said the runway there can be used to quickly fly undocumented immigrants to third countries if deportation is deemed appropriate.
‘You’ll be able to bring people in, they’ll get processed, they have an order of removal, then they can be queued and the federal government can fly — right on the runway, right there, you literally drive them 2,000 feet, put them on a plane and then they’re gone,’ DeSantis said.
The center has 1,000 people staffing it and is surrounded by security cameras. The Florida National Guard will mobilize roughly 100 troops to help with the facility.
Native American groups also have protested the facility, noting it was built in an area they consider their sacred ancestral homeland.
Safety concerns have also been raised.
With the migrants housed in tents and trailers, they will be surrounded by 200,000 alligators, along with non-indigenous predators like pythons and a family of panthers.
Pressed by the Daily Mail on Monday whether the dangerous animals were a design feature, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt responded: ‘When you have illegal murderers and rapists and heinous criminals in a detention facility surrounded by alligators, yes, I do think that’s a deterrent for them to try to escape.’
The controversial detention center will be set at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, a forgotten pilot training airstrip deep in the Everglades
The Department of Homeland Security stoked fear with an AI-generated meme showing snarling alligators in ICE baseball caps patrolling the swampy grounds of the future facility dubbed ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’
A drone view shows the construction site of the state’s forthcoming ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ ICE detention center at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport
Protestors gather at the entrance of Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport ahead of the ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ opening
The Trump administration has expressed its pride in the facility and argued it will help its goal of the mass deportation of migrants.
‘There is only one road leading in, and the only way out is a one-way flight; it is isolated and surrounded by dangerous wildlife and unforgiving terrain,’ Leavitt noted. ‘This is an efficient and low-cost way to help carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in American history.’
Trump campaigned against removing migrants, making it a signature piece of his presidential bid.
He’s also been an admirer of other hardcore detention facilities such as Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and El Salvador’s mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center.
