Florida to shut controversial Everglades migrant detention center amid soaring costs

Florida moved to shut down its controversial Everglades migrant detention center after the cost of keeping it open surged toward $1 billion, a sharp reversal for a facility built in little more than a week and sold as a hard-line immigration symbol. Vendors were told Tuesday afternoon that detainees would be moved by the start of June, even though the state had already spent about $250 million to build the site at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, deep inside Big Cypress National Preserve.

The numbers now tell the story of a politically potent project that became a fiscal burden. State officials said the center was costing more than $1 million a day to operate, and Florida has sought more than $600 million in federal reimbursement, money that has not yet been turned over. Documents obtained by advocates put the daily housing cost at about $1.02 million for roughly 4,000 to 4,100 detainees, underscoring how quickly the price tag escalated.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said the site was always meant to be temporary, calling it a “bridge” facility and saying that if the lights were shut off tomorrow, it would have “served its purpose.” He also said the final call would come from the Department of Homeland Security, which he said wanted a “fresh look” at its detention footprint. The department denied it was pressuring Florida to end operations.

Alligator Alcatraz opened in July 2025 on an airstrip once intended for a major airport, about 37 miles west of Miami, and quickly became one of the most visible pieces of Florida and federal immigration enforcement. DeSantis said nearly 22,000 people who were not in the country lawfully had been processed for deportation through the facility. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement records cited in reporting showed an average population of about 1,400 detainees there from October 1, 2025, through early April 2026.

The center also drew protests, vigils and repeated legal challenges. Environmental and tribal lawsuits accused officials of building and operating in a sensitive wetland home to alligators, crocodiles and pythons, and an appeals court allowed the site to keep operating in April while litigation continued. Critics said detainees were kept under bright lights around the clock, denied medicine, blocked from lawyers, crowded into cages and humid dorms that smelled of urine, with too few toilets and little dignity.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava called the possible shutdown long overdue, while Debbie Wasserman Schultz said an unannounced visit showed nearly 1,500 people held in inhumane conditions, many without criminal histories. If the closure goes forward, it will close a chapter in Florida’s immigration crackdown that was defined as much by cost, court fights and public outrage as by enforcement itself.