{"id":38662,"date":"2025-07-26T11:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T11:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/38662\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T11:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T11:57:08","slug":"new-aerial-footage-shows-alligator-alcatraz-immigration-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/38662\/","title":{"rendered":"New aerial footage shows \u2018Alligator Alcatraz\u2019 immigration center"},"content":{"rendered":"

New aerial footage is showing another view of the high-security immigration detention center in Florida’s Everglades coined “Alligator Alcatraz<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Under Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/a>‘ directive, the facility opened on an airstrip earlier this month for thousands of undocumented immigrants while also serving as a “transitional shelter for migrants.” The tent city<\/a> was set up at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport located around 45 miles west of Miami and is only accessible through a two-lane highway, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n

Video shows the facility filled with rows of white tents, RVs and portable buildings all surrounded by a vast wetland. Officials have described the center as “escape-proof” due to its terrain. The Everglades is home to alligators, crocodiles, various snakes and the Florida panther, according the National Park Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s Division of Emergency Management oversees the site in coordination with federal agencies including ICE<\/a>, Reuters reported. The state estimates the facility would cost more than $450 million annually to operate.<\/p>\n

See new angle of Florida\u2019s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ facility\"play\"<\/p>\n

See aerial video from above the Alligator Alcatraz detention center<\/p>\n

Alligator Alcatraz is a new high-security immigration detention center in the Florida’s Everglades.<\/p>\n

Trump says its ‘might be as good as the real Alcatraz’<\/p>\n

After touring the facility on July 1, President Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0praised Florida officials for picking the isolated wilderness spot, adding “I think it’s great government what we’ve done.”<\/p>\n

“They did this in less than a week,” Trump said, according to\u00a0Reuters<\/a>. “You look at it and it’s incredible. \u2026 It might be as good as the real Alcatraz. Well, that’s a spooky one, too. That’s a tough site.”<\/p>\n

Trump added that the center is “not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon” and that “the only way out is really deportation.”<\/p>\n

The new facility comes as immigration advocates continue to express concerns over capacity at state and national detention centers amid Trump Administration’s increased pace of immigrant apprehensions and removals<\/a> from the United States.<\/p>\n

Critics have condemned the new detention facility<\/a> for holding people without a criminal record and for conditions inside. The New York Times reported earlier this month that only about\u00a060% of the detainees have criminal convictions<\/a> and that 900 men are sleeping in tents.<\/p>\n

Others have voiced concerns over the facility’s impact over the Everglade’s itself, home to 36 threatened or endangered species, according to the National Park Service.<\/p>\n

Contributing: Fernando Cervantes Jr., USA TODAY and Antonio Fins, Palm Beach Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New aerial footage is showing another view of the high-security immigration detention center in Florida’s Everglades coined “Alligator…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[19869,23,25246,3426,31552,14804,12,6559,15606,13962,2808,790,4688,6377,13490,6779,14883,3258,16704,3,6206,111,31551,2819,29311,29319,10822,5262,31554,29312,1596,31553,15601,3795,3479,13692,21,19,22,20,25,24,1350,31555,3259],"class_list":["post-38662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-advocacy","tag-america","tag-branch","tag-company","tag-desantis","tag-donald","tag-donald-trump","tag-everglades","tag-executive","tag-executive-branch","tag-florida","tag-immigration","tag-issues","tag-national","tag-national-park-service","tag-network","tag-network-trending","tag-new","tag-new-york-times-company","tag-news","tag-park","tag-politics","tag-ron","tag-ron-desantis","tag-sensitive","tag-sensitive-subjects","tag-service","tag-social","tag-social-issues-u0026-advocacy","tag-subjects","tag-the","tag-the-everglades","tag-times","tag-trending","tag-trump","tag-u0026","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-visa","tag-visa-u0026-immigration","tag-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}