{"id":364646,"date":"2026-08-06T20:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T20:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/364646\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T20:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T20:48:14","slug":"questions-raised-as-florida-seeks-to-build-detention-facilities-south-of-i-4-orlando-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/364646\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions raised as Florida seeks to build detention facilities south of I-4 \u2013 Orlando Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida wants to build at least five small detention facilities south of the Interstate-4 corridor, a possible new push by the state to bolster federal mass deportations in the wake of the closure of Alligator Alcatraz<\/a> and a failed effort to convert an Orange County warehouse<\/a> into a large holding facility for migrants.<\/p>\n

The request for information was put out by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and publicly released Monday. The notice seeks vendors who might want to construct such facilities.<\/p>\n

It went largely unnoticed until it was shared Thursday morning by state House Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, who stood alongside Central Florida immigration advocates against past attempts at building detention centers in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt immediately raised concerns, because though it doesn\u2019t say immigrants specifically, it lists federal oversight and is asking for details that are reminiscent of the so-called Alligator Alcatraz facility that just closed,\u201d Eskamani told the Orlando Sentinel. \u201cThis just seems like a new iteration under a different department that has never engaged in the detention of individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the seven-page document<\/a>, the state looks to build \u201cpreferably five or more\u201d detention centers located south of I-4, the 132-mile highway stretching from Tampa through Central Florida\u00a0 to Daytona Beach. Each center would house approximately 50 people each.<\/p>\n

The document does not specify that the detention centers would to house migrants for deportation. But the facilities would fall under federal oversight and have office spaces \u201cfor state or federal personnel,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n

The request was made on behalf of the Florida Highway Patrol, which leads the state in immigration arrests.<\/p>\n

Responses are due Aug. 10. A highway department spokesperson did not respond to a message seeking further information.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are all alarm bells that the state of Florida wants to open up more detention facilities after they just spent $1.1 billion on a location in the Everglades that has yet to be reimbursed,\u201d Eskamani said.<\/p>\n

The move to construct new detention facilities come after a failed federal effort at repurposing a warehouse, located just south of I-4 near Lake Nona in Orange County, into a detention center.<\/p>\n

That facility, which would have housed 1,500 detainees, was toured by U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials in January<\/a> in a nationwide search for similar properties to be used as migrant detention centers. That proposal \u2014\u00a0 along with dozens around the country \u2014\u00a0\u00a0was reportedly abandoned following public outcry and pushback from lawmakers and advocates, some of whom nicknamed it the \u201cLake Nona Concentration Camp.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The latest detention push also comes as the Trump administration\u00a0ended temporary protected status, or TPS, for Haitians<\/a>. Florida is home to more than half of the Haitian population living in the U.S., with the highest concentration being in South Florida.<\/p>\n

Florida has been at the forefront of state efforts to bolster the Trump administration\u2019s mass deportation campaign.<\/p>\n

Emblematic to the effort was Alligator Alcatraz, a state-constructed detention center housed at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Everglades that immediately faced backlash from human rights activists as details emerged in news reports of squalid conditions for the people housed there.<\/p>\n

Gov. Ron DeSantis declared the facility closed at a press conference in June, boasting that 21,000 detainees were flown out of the U.S. from there in the year that it was operational. A second facility, a former state prison in Baker County re-dubbed \u201cDeportation Depot,\u201d remains open.<\/p>\n

In May, DeSantis touted nearly 25,000 arrests of unauthorized immigrants by state and local law enforcement since 2025 as part of so called 287(g) agreements signed by local and state agencies to collaborate in immigration enforcement operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida wants to build at least five small detention facilities south of the Interstate-4 corridor, a possible new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[112,29,114,266,115,139,141,140,109],"class_list":["post-364646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-florida-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364646","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=364646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}