This story was produced through a partnership between The Florida Trib and Two Can Be True.
As Florida officials told the public they were shuttering the controversial Everglades immigration detention center branded “Alligator Alcatraz,” they internally discussed plans to repurpose it instead as a short-term transfer site, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the talks.
As recently as Tuesday, workers were being told to remain prepared to receive up to 500 detainees with little or no notice, according to both sources, who have detailed knowledge of the facility’s operations. At the same time, officials were discussing whether the remote facility could be repurposed as a short-term, 72-hour transfer site for people awaiting deportation, the source said.
The Florida Trib and Two Can Be True agreed not to reveal the sources’ identities because they were not authorized to discuss operations publicly and feared retaliation.
The fluid internal discussions suggest the future of the taxpayer-funded facility – whose operations have often been shrouded in secrecy – was less settled than the public messaging indicated. While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis touted its shutdown as the end of a temporary detention site built with public dollars, officials were weighing a smaller federal role that could have kept the camp available for immigration enforcement operations with a reduced footprint, the source said.
It’s not clear how much this repurposing could have further drawn down state emergency funds, which have propped up the detention center to the tune of $1 million per day.
Such a model may allow the state to close the larger detention center while preserving the site as a smaller federal deportation staging point.
In recent days, and as late as Wednesday evening, according to sources with knowledge of internal discussions, state officials have waffled over the final fate of the facility.
Hours after Two Can Be True asked DHS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Florida Division of Emergency Management and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office whether the state planned to keep the facility open in a downsized form, staff received urgent new instructions from state officials: shut it all down by Friday, according to a source.
A small team of about a dozen people is expected to remain temporarily to oversee logistics and records retention while the facility is being dismantled.
DeSantis’ office declined to comment and referred all questions to FDEM, which has served as the state’s operational arm at the site.
The agency– positioned between the Governor’s Office, federal immigration officials and private contractors responsible for carrying out the facility’s day-to-day logistics – did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The Wednesday order marked the clearest indication yet that the state-run detention camp was moving toward a full shutdown. It’s also the latest turn in an ongoing back-and-forth between state and federal officials over the facility’s future.
The order came after days in which staff were still being instructed to prepare for a possible rapid intake of hundreds of detainees, while officials discussed whether the site could continue operating in another form.
A source said no written guidance about the 72-hour model had reached field-level staff. Instead, the possibility had been discussed during daily operations meetings by executive leadership.
Plans for a VIP visit and possible press conference also shifted repeatedly this week, adding to the confusion. After staff were instructed not to dismantle the housing unit and to make sure it remained “pristine,” detention staff were told late Wednesday that the press conference was, in fact, expected to happen Thursday morning, according to a source familiar with the plans.
Staff were also told they would have to leave the premises from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and that all roads would be closed, the source said.
At 7:15 a.m. Thursday, the Governor’s Office sent a brief media advisory giving reporters just a few hours’ notice to meet at a staging area in the remote Everglades.
DeSantis says mission accomplished
Florida officials used Thursday morning’s press conference to say the facility has fulfilled its mission, with DeSantis announcing that the site now has zero detainees and is being demobilized. He said the temporary detention center helped lead to almost 21,00 deportations and argued that, without it, people would have been released back into Florida communities while awaiting removal.
Still, the press conference underscored that Alligator Alcatraz is only one piece of Florida’s larger immigration-enforcement push.
Officials repeatedly touted Florida’s 287(g) program, saying the state has “80% more” agreements than any other state and accounts for 40% of related arrests nationwide.
But they did not provide the underlying data or agency-by-agency breakdowns behind those claims — the same kind of information local agencies have been told not to release without ICE approval.
Officials did not directly address whether using the facility as a temporary deportation staging area was still on the table or had been ruled out.
A national symbol
GardaWorld, one of the main contractors operating at the site, declined to discuss the evolving plans.
The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, which has challenged the detention center because of its location in the Everglades and its potential impact on Tribal lands, resources and interests, said it could not comment on the facility’s operational status.
“It’s just not our position to comment on operational stuff,” a spokesperson said. “That would have to come out from them.”
DeSantis, whose administration built and promoted the facility as part of Florida’s support for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, has publicly cast the site as a temporary operation that would close if federal officials no longer needed it — messaging that appeared to signal a clear wind-down even as internal discussions continued over whether the site could remain available in a smaller federal role.
“Alligator Alcatraz” opened in July 2025 as a state-run immigration detention facility built on a remote Everglades airstrip to support the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Florida officials promoted it as a fast-moving detention model, but the facility quickly became a national symbol of the state’s aggressive role in federal immigration enforcement — and of the enormous public cost behind that expansion.
The shutdown comes after months of mounting taxpayer costs. In November, the Florida Division of Emergency Management projected the center would cost roughly $1.1 billion by June 2026. State officials have long expected the Federal Emergency Management Agency to reimburse $608 million.
The detention site drew scrutiny almost as soon as it opened. Critics, including immigration advocates, environmental groups, attorneys and families of detainees, condemned its remote location, reported conditions and barriers to legal access.
Environmental groups,including the Miccosukee Tribe,have challenged the facility over concerns about its impact on the surrounding ecosystem.
The controversy extended beyond the facility’s location and cost. Earlier reporting by Two Can Be True documented detention personnel wearing unauthorized “Alligator Alcatraz” patches, raising questions about the culture inside the camp and the state’s oversight of contractors and staff. State officials later said the patches were not sanctioned.
In recent days, federal officials said detainees had been transferred out of Alligator Alcatraz because of hurricane-season safety concerns. ICE did not disclose how many detainees were moved or where they were taken.
Though the latest internal update indicates the facility is now being demobilized, the sequence leaves a central question unanswered: how close the state came to closing the taxpayer-funded camp publicly while keeping it available for federal immigration use in another form.
This story was produced in partnership through a partnership between The Florida Trib and Two Can Be True with support from The Lenfest Institute.
Monique O. Madan is the founder of Two Can Be True, a newsletter grounded in nearly two decades in newsrooms that explores the intersection of investigative reporting, narrative writing, and lived experience.
This story is available for republication only by express agreement. If you wish to republish, please reach out to Deirdre Conner at deirdre.conner@floridatrib.org or Monique O. Madan at contact@moniqueomadan.com.
