Florida’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ immigration detention centre, erected hastily in the Everglades swamps, has been permanently closed, Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday. The facility, which held zero detainees at the time of the announcement, is expected to be fully dismantled within two weeks. According to Mr DeSantis, the site had processed the deportation of 21,000 people and was always intended as a temporary emergency measure until federal authorities could expand permanent detention capacity.

Speaking alongside White House border czar Tom Homan, the Republican governor framed the closure as a mission accomplished. ‘It served its purpose for the time,’ he said, noting that detainees had already been transferred to other facilities earlier in June, initially as a precaution against hurricane season. From the perspective of the Trump administration and Florida officials, the centre was a critical tool in the mass deportation campaign, with Mr Homan highlighting that Florida accounts for 40 per cent of national immigration arrests under cooperative agreements with federal authorities.

However, the facility drew sustained condemnation from human rights organisations, legal advocates, and environmental groups. A report by Amnesty International, based on detainee testimonies, described people held in overcrowded cages, with limited access to lawyers, food contaminated with worms, and floors flooded with faecal waste. The American Civil Liberties Union called the site’s existence ‘a scandal’ and said its closure did not remedy systemic abuses in the detention system. Environmental lawsuits argued that construction on the abandoned airstrip damaged the fragile Everglades ecosystem and threatened protected species, with the local Miccosukee Tribe also opposing the project.

The cost of the facility became a further point of contention. Florida officials estimated total expenses at over $1 billion, with daily operating costs exceeding $1 million. While the federal government has approved hundreds of millions in reimbursement, the state has not been fully repaid. Miami-Dade County, which owns the land, now seeks to transfer the site to the National Park Service for Everglades restoration. Mayor Daniella Levine Cava stated that people had been held there ‘in inhumane conditions without meaningful due process, while occupying land alongside one of the world’s most precious natural ecosystems.’

The closure marks the end of a facility that became a symbol of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies. Built in just over a week in June 2025 and opened the following month, it was visited by President Trump, who joked that alligators would serve as guards. A federal judge had temporarily barred new arrivals last August, but an appeals court allowed operations to continue during litigation. With the dismantling underway, attention now turns to the land’s future and the broader debate over detention conditions, as the administration presses ahead with deportation efforts through other facilities.