Florida governor candidate David Jolly speaks during the Miami-Dade Democratic Party’s 2026 Blue Gala at the Frost Science Museum, in Miami. Florida, on Saturday, September 19, 2026.
PHOTO BY AL DIAZ
adiaz@miamiherald.com
David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for governor, is calling for an investigation into the state-run immigration detention facility in north Florida known as Deportation Depot after a federal watchdog report found that the DeSantis administration failed to ensure humane standards at the now-shuttered Everglades detention center dubbed Alligator Alcatraz.
A Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report found that the Everglades detention center, whose operations were overseen by the Florida Division of Emergency Management, violated numerous state and federal standards. The federal watchdog found that detainees were sometimes confined in small metal cages and lacked adequate living space and access to water.
The findings raised alarms about the still-operating Baker Correctional Institution, which the DeSantis administration colloquially dubbed “Deportation Depot” to mirror the pithy name of the Everglades facility.
In its report, the federal watchdog said Deportation Depot “has not been internally inspected by ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight nor was it scheduled for inspection in FY 2026 or FY 2027.”
“ICE’s own documentation lists contractually obligated standards for Baker as ‘N/A’,” the report stated.
Jolly told reporters Saturday at a Democratic Party gala in downtown Miami that “the reality is, the same conditions likely exist” at Deportation Depot.
“If there is nothing to worry about, then let’s open up the Baker County facility, allow the [Inspector General] to go in and investigate that as well,” he said.
He called on U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, his Republican opponent from Naples, to join in demanding an investigation into the facility, which housed about 1,028 detainees as of Aug. 27, according to the report.
The DeSantis administration announced the facility last fall, turning the Baker County Correctional Institution in Sanderson — which had prison infrastructure, unlike the tents at Alligator Alcatraz — into another state-run detention facility. The facility has received less public attention, but detainees who have been held there have shared similar complaints about harsh conditions and inadequate medical care.
Detainees at the detention center have complained about being pepper-sprayed on at least two occasions, the Associated Press reported in January.
The DeSantis administration has committed more than $1.4 billion in no-bid contracts with private contractors to help carry out Donald Trump’s mass deportation mandate and crackdown on immigrant communities. Some $230 million of that commitment is to operate Deportation Depot, according to a review of contract records by the Herald/Times.
Miami Herald
Churchill Ndonwie is an Esserman Investigative Fellow at The Miami Herald. Before this role, he was an Ida B. Wells investigative intern with the New York Times, where he examined the hidden pipeline of undocumented workers into U.S. factories and the victimization those individuals experienced. He was also a Global Migrations Fellow at Columbia Journalism Investigations, where he worked with Reuters to investigate and reveal the smuggling routes through commercial and charter airlines used to facilitate illegal immigration to the U.S. Southern border from India and West Africa.