Deportation flights from the makeshift South Florida immigration detention facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” have begun, the state’s governor said.
“What has been done here has been remarkable,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday at a news conference at the site the state built in eight days deep in the Everglades, less than 50 miles west of President Donald Trump’s resort in Miami.
“We have already had a number of flights in the last few days,” DeSantis said.
“We’ve had two or three removal flights, and we’ll continue to have those removal flights. Up to 100 individuals who were illegally present in the state of Florida have already been removed from the United States,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Garrett J. Ripa said.
“We now have capacity for a couple of thousand. We can expand that as demand is there,” added Ripa, ICE’s acting executive associate director. “There is not a person here (at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’) that is not on a final removal order.”
Flights from the new detention base are part of the sweeping deportation agenda that helped propel Trump to a second term but now threatens to backfire on the US economy as Americans largely oppose it.
Conditions at the detention camp are poor, its detainees have told CNN, with over 30 people held in cells made of chain-link fencing and few bathrooms available. One called the facility “a type of torture,” while another at a news conference this week said it was being “like a dog cage.”
Detainees also have limited access to water and showers and dealt with toilets backing up, air conditioning going out and tents allowing in rain and insects, they’ve told CNN.
Lawmakers who have toured the facility have given matching descriptions. And lawsuits aimed at the detention facility’s environmental impact and detainees’ access to legal counsel have been filed.
As hurricane season’s peak approaches, families of those at the site are concerned about the weather threats.
“This facility, as I have said on the record, can withstand category winds of up to Category 2. But there is a Category 3 and a 4 and a 5,” Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie has said, noting the site must be evacuated if a storm stronger than Category 2 threatens.
Still, the governor on Friday lauded the facility as deportation flights began.
“Hey, this is our moment,” DeSantis said. “This is what we all campaigned on. Let’s get it done … Florida is playing the leading role amongst the 50 states, and I don’t think there is anyone close to what we have done.”
CNN Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.
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