Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport
- Also called:
- Alligator Alcatraz
What is the Alligator Alcatraz facility?
Who proposed and expedited the Alligator Alcatraz project?
What were the main criticisms of the Alligator Alcatraz project?
What was the original purpose of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport?
What were the environmental concerns regarding the Alligator Alcatraz detention facility?
News •
A once-unused airfield located in Big Cypress National Preserve, deep within the Florida Everglades, gained renewed attention in 2025—not for its aviation legacy, but for its contentious transformation into a large-scale immigration detention center. The project at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport was proposed by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and expedited by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who invoked emergency powers to assume control of the site, despite its ownership by Miami-Dade county. Backed by the U.S. federal government, the facility was constructed as part of Pres. Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign, which called for mass detentions and deportations under a “zero tolerance” policy framework. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), under the leadership of Secretary Kristi Noem, approved a plan to detain as many as 5,000 migrants at the facility—dubbed Alligator Alcatraz by administration officials. Inside the compound, aluminum-framed tents span the former airfield runway, each packed with rows of bunk beds confined within chain-link fencing. Toilets are fully exposed within the enclosures, offering no privacy and underscoring the facility’s emphasis on surveillance and control.
The creation of the facility prompted swift and widespread opposition. Immigration advocates condemned the decision to detain thousands of individuals in a remote and inhospitable environment, warning that such isolation would make meaningful oversight and accountability nearly impossible. Environmentalists expressed alarm over the disruption to the fragile Everglades ecosystem, cautioning that the development could cause lasting ecological damage. Local officials raised concerns about both the legality and safety of invoking emergency powers to bypass public review of the project—particularly during the height of Florida’s hurricane season. Additionally, the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes, who live in the area and whose ancestral lands encompass the surrounding region, strongly condemned the project, describing it as a desecration of sacred territory and a continuation of historical injustices.
An airfield with a troubled legacy
The site began as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, a little-used airstrip in Big Cypress National Preserve, about 50 miles (80 km) west of Miami. Constructed in the late 1960s as part of an ambitious plan to build the world’s largest airport, the project was quickly scaled back after a 1969 scientific advisory report by the federal government warned that the project would permanently disrupt the region’s hydrology and threaten the delicate balance of the ecosystem. Scientists, conservationists, and neighboring tribal communities raised alarm over the lasting ecological and cultural damage it would inflict on the Everglades. Only a single 10,500-foot (3,200-meter) runway was completed before the jetport project was halted.
In 1974 the U.S. federal government designated the area surrounding the airport as Big Cypress National Preserve—the first national preserve in the United States—under Pres. Gerald Ford, explicitly recognizing the region’s environmental and cultural significance. The legislation stated that the preserve was created to “assure the preservation, conservation, and protection of the natural, scenic, hydrologic, floral and faunal, and recreational values of the Big Cypress Watershed in the state of Florida and to provide for the enhancement and public enjoyment thereof.”
The preserve’s creation and the decommissioning of the airport marked a rare convergence of scientific consensus, Indigenous advocacy, and federal action, halting plans for large-scale development in favor of long-term ecological and cultural preservation. While the airfield technically remained operational, it was used only sporadically in the decades that followed—for pilot training—never fulfilling its original ambitions. Its remote location and long-dormant status made it an unlikely candidate for renewed development until 2025, when it was abruptly repurposed for the construction of a large-scale migrant detention center, reigniting many of the same environmental and ethical concerns that had stopped the project half a century earlier.
From airfield to Alligator Alcatraz
In June 2025 the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport was rapidly transformed into a large-scale immigration detention facility. Under the directive of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and with support from the DHS, construction crews encircled the site with more than 28,000 feet (8,530 meters) of barbed wire, installed more than 200 surveillance cameras, and assembled rows of aluminum-framed tents across the airport’s former runway. The project was completed in just eight days. The facility’s purpose was to confine thousands of migrants awaiting deportation under an expanded federal enforcement initiative. The facility was designed to hold as many as 5,000 people and was projected to cost about $450 million annually to operate. According to the DHS, the state of Florida would initially fund the facility, with plans to seek reimbursement through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Shelter and Services Program. However, as of July 3, 2025, Florida had not submitted a formal reimbursement request, leaving the full financial burden temporarily on the state.
On July 1, 2025, days before the facility opened, President Trump visited the site, accompanied by DeSantis and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. During a tour of the grounds, Trump stated, “It’s known as Alligator Alcatraz, which is very appropriate because I looked outside, and that’s not a place I want to go hiking.” He continued, “But very soon this facility will have some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.” The visit received widespread media coverage and much criticism from the public. Isolated within the Big Cypress National Preserve and constructed on an accelerated timeline, the facility quickly became a focal point of national debate on immigration policy and enforcement.
Legal, environmental, and tribal opposition
Civil rights groups, environmental organizations, legal experts, politicians, Indigenous communities, and the general public all raised objections to the facility’s location, purpose, and the manner in which it was authorized and constructed. Many argued that the project circumvented democratic and legal procedures, posed serious environmental risks, and disregarded the cultural significance of the surrounding landscape to the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes. While state officials involved with the project framed the facility as a necessary measure to address immigration enforcement, opponents saw it as a dangerous overreach of authority, one that sidelined public accountability and community input in the name of speed and political theater.
The decision to authorize the facility under emergency powers drew immediate legal scrutiny. Critics argued that DeSantis sidestepped public oversight by seizing property owned by the county without legislative review or environmental assessment. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, while acknowledging the governor’s authority under the emergency order, expressed major concerns about the project. “The rapid pace of this effort has provided little opportunity for due diligence given the potential significant impacts to our community,” she said in a public statement. Florida state legislators also voiced frustration at being left out of the process. “We have 67 dilapidated and inefficient correctional facilities that we have trouble staffing already,” said State Sen. Jason Pizzo. “Sounds brilliant.” His comments echoed broader concerns about the legality and sustainability of launching such a major operation without input from the state legislature or affected counties.
The environmental concerns were no less urgent. Big Cypress National Preserve is an ecological treasure and a source of drinking water for millions across Florida. Conservationists and scientists warned that building a high-security facility in the heart of the Everglades risked contaminating the area and threatening the lives of many endangered species, such as the Florida panther, that call the fragile wetlands home. Critics also noted the contradiction of placing such a project in a landscape that the DeSantis administration had previously championed as central to Everglades preservation. “There is just no way you can claim to be an Everglades advocate and let this proposal for a prison in the Everglades move forward,” said Eve Samples, executive director of the nonprofit Friends of the Everglades.
But for many, the damage wasn’t just environmental or procedural—it was symbolic. “Rather than Miccosukee homelands being an uninhabited wasteland for alligators and pythons, as some have suggested, the Big Cypress is the Tribe’s traditional homeland. The landscape has protected the Miccosukee and Seminole people for generations,” wrote Talbert Cypress, chairman of the Miccosukee tribe. Human rights organizations also denounced the facility, warning that confining thousands of people in a remote, heavily surveilled encampment would isolate them from legal aid, public oversight, and basic care. U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida called such detention centers “nothing short of human rights abuses.” The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida called the project “not just cruel and absurd” but emblematic of an immigration system increasingly used “to punish people rather than process them.”
The facility’s construction in the Florida Everglades intensified the national debate over the human rights implications of immigration detention, particularly when such efforts intersect with protected lands, marginalized communities, and limited public transparency.