{"id":262266,"date":"2026-05-07T17:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/262266\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T17:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:27:10","slug":"florida-in-talks-with-trump-administration-to-shut-down-alligator-alcatraz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/262266\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida in talks with Trump administration to shut down Alligator Alcatraz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Published:\u00a0May 7, 2026 at 1:03 PM<\/p>\n<p>Federal and state officials are considering whether to shut down Florida\u2019s so-called \u201cAlligator Alcatraz,\u201d a facility that has drawn scrutiny over its conditions and operations, according to the New York Times.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">OCHOPEE, Fla.  \u2014 Florida is in talks with the Trump administration to shut down the Alligator Alcatraz migrant detention facility, according to a report from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/07\/us\/florida-alligator-alcatraz-possible-closure.html\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/07\/us\/florida-alligator-alcatraz-possible-closure.html\">The New York Times.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2026\/05\/07\/reporte-florida-negocia-con-administracion-trump-cierre-de-alligator-alcatraz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2026\/05\/07\/reporte-florida-negocia-con-administracion-trump-cierre-de-alligator-alcatraz\/\">Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The controversial facility, located in the heart of the Florida Everglades, was opened last summer and has reportedly cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The shutdown talks are preliminary, according to people close to Gov. Ron DeSantis who spoke to the Times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Officials at the Department of Homeland Security have reportedly concluded that it is too expensive to keep operating the detention center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A federal official told the publication that DHS has come to consider the center as ineffective.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The DeSantis administration has been spending more than $1 million a day to run Alligator Alcatraz and some private vendors hired by the state to operate it have been struggling to keep up with costs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">As of last month, the center held nearly 1,400 detainees &#8212; all of them men, according to data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">DeSantis has said from the start that the federal government would pay for the facility, but Florida has yet to receive the $608 million federal reimbursement to run the center over the past year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Department of Homeland Security and the Florida Department of Emergency Management did not respond to The Times\u2019 request for comment as of the time of publication.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Caroline Coles\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/author-service-images-prod-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/86e192d8-0a9f-49de-b4c1-.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Caroline Coles<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">Caroline Coles  is an experienced journalist who brings energy, heart, and hustle to every story. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0May 7, 2026 at 1:03 PM Federal and state officials are considering whether to shut down Florida\u2019s so-called&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-262266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}