Governor Ron DeSantis announced the rapid establishment of Alligator Alcatraz, a facility designed for deportation staging, featuring a two-mile runway for federal military aircraft to transport illegal aliens directly from site.
“We stood up Alligator Alcatraz in just eight days as a centralized facility for deportation staging. The facility has a two-mile runway that allows federal military aircraft to transport illegal aliens out of the country, right on site.
These deportation flights operated by DHS are underway, and we will support efforts to increase cadence of the flights so that the number of illegal aliens deported keeps increasing.
This is a mandate set upon us by the American people. Florida’s state and local agencies are serving as force multipliers for federal efforts to arrest and deport illegal aliens. We’re charging full speed ahead to deliver on immigration enforcement.”
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Deportation flights from the remote Everglades immigration lockup known as Alligator Alcatraz have begun and are expected to increase soon, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday.
The first flights operated by the Department of Homeland Security have transferred about 100 detainees from the immigration detention center to other countries, DeSantis said during a news conference near the facility.
“You’re going to see the numbers go up dramatically,” he said.
Two or three flights have already departed, but officials didn’t say where those flights headed.
Critics have condemned the South Florida facility as cruel and inhumane. DeSantis and other Republican officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Building the facility in the Everglades and naming it after a notorious federal prison were meant as deterrents, DeSantis and other officials have said.
The White House has delighted in the area’s remoteness — about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Miami — and the fact that it is teeming with pythons and alligators. It hopes to send a message that repercussions will be severe if U.S. immigration laws are broken.
Trump has suggested that his administration could reopen Alcatraz, the notorious island prison in San Francisco Bay. The White House also has sent some immigrants awaiting deportation to a detention lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and others to a megaprison in El Salvador.
It currently holds about 2,000 people, with the potential to double the capacity, Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said Friday.
“This was never intended to be something where people are just held,” he said. “The whole purpose is to be a place that can facilitate increased frequency and numbers of deportations.”
