By Daphne Psaledakis and Ted Hesson<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) – Florida intends to shut down the controversial federal migrant detention center known \u200cas “Alligator Alcatraz”, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing a \u200cfederal official and three people familiar with the facility’s operations.<\/p>\n
According to the report, vendors were \u200btold by officials on Tuesday afternoon that the facility was closing and that detainees would be moved by the start of June. The facility, which cost about $250 million to build, would be broken down over the following weeks, according \u200cto the sources cited in the \u2060report.<\/p>\n
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for DHS, asked about \u2060the New York Times report, said the agency continues to evaluate detention needs and requirements to ensure they meet the latest operational requirements.<\/p>\n
“Any reports that DHS \u200bis pressuring \u200bthe state to cease operations at \u200bAlligator Alcatraz are false,” the \u200cspokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Immigration and Customs Enforcement had held an average of about 1,400 detainees at the facility from October 1, 2025, through early April of this year, according to statistics from the agency. Advocates criticized the conditions in the facility, saying bright lights remained on 24 hours a day, detainees were \u200cdenied medicine, and the remote location made \u200bit challenging to obtain legal counsel.<\/p>\n
The facility \u200bwas opened under former Homeland \u200bSecurity Secretary Kristi Noem’s tenure and is located 37 miles (60 \u200ckm) west of Miami in a \u200bvast subtropical wetland \u200bthat is home to alligators, crocodiles and pythons – imagery that the White House leveraged to show its determination to remove migrants.<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald \u200bTrump, who has a home \u200cin Florida, has for a decade made aggressive immigration and \u200bborder policies central to his political agenda.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and \u200bTed Hesson; editing by Michelle Nichols)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Daphne Psaledakis and Ted Hesson WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) – Florida intends to shut down the controversial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3120,50892,30018,28,3291,30,29],"class_list":["post-268592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-alligator-alcatraz","tag-detainees","tag-federal-official","tag-florida","tag-florida-governor","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268592","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=268592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}