Trucks come and go from the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, Aug. 28, 2025, in Collier County, Fla. (AP Photo\/Rebecca Blackwell, File)<\/small><\/p>\n
2026-06-25T16:05:41Z<\/p>\n
OCHOPEE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The immigration center built in the Florida swamps known as \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d<\/a><\/span> is closing after nearly a year of holding thousands of immigrant detainees, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday.<\/p>\n DeSantis said the center was always supposed to be temporary and now federal officials have enough ability to handle detention and deportation in more permanent facilities.<\/p>\n The goal was to have the facility open only for about a year until more permanent detention centers could be secured, DeSantis said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt served its purpose for the time,\u201d the Republican governor said.<\/p>\n Officials announced a temporary closure<\/a><\/span> of the facility earlier in June, saying hurricane season made it unsafe to keep the detainees in the Florida Everglades. All the of people kept at the isolated airstrip had been sent to other facilities.<\/p>\n Immigration advocates said the tents were never safe or humane to hold people. Detainees at the facility have talked about their difficulty accessing lawyers, and have described poor physical conditions, including worms in the food, toilets that don\u2019t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects everywhere.<\/p>\n The detention center was built by DeSantis\u2019 administration in a matter of days in 2025 and President Trump came to visit site.<\/p>\n DeSantis and Trump said the detention center was critical to Republican efforts to return people in the country illegally back to their home countries. The Republican governor said 21,000 people were deported through the facility.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trucks come and go from the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, Aug. 28, 2025, in Collier County, Fla. (AP Photo\/Rebecca Blackwell, File) 2026-06-25T16:05:41Z OCHOPEE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The immigration center built in the Florida swamps known as \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d is closing after nearly a year of holding thousands of immigrant detainees,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u83b7\u53d6\u66f4\u591aRSS\uff1a
https:\/\/feedx.net<\/a>
https:\/\/feedx.site<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"