A Florida Native American chief spoke out in opposition to a brand new migrant detention facility within the Florida Everglades, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” elevating environmental and security issues for native tribal communities.
President Trump, visiting the positioning Tuesday, mentioned the ability will maintain “a number of the most menacing migrants, a number of the most vicious folks on the planet.”
The detention heart, constructed on a distant airstrip within the Everglades, can maintain as much as 5,000 migrants in tents and trailers.
A drone view exhibits the development website of the state’s forthcoming “Alligator Alcatraz” ICE detention heart at Dade-Collier Coaching and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, June 28, 2025.
AP
Talbert Cypress, chairman of the Miccosukee Enterprise Council, mentioned some tribal villages are situated inside 900 ft of the ability’s entrance.
“This proposed facility is surrounded on all sides by the Huge Cypress Nationwide Protect, and the tribe has been at residence within the Huge Cypress for hundreds of years,” Cypress informed ABC Information.
Cypress pointed to the dearth of environmental research on what creating the detention heart might imply for the native ecosystem.
“There’s been no environmental impression examine carried out. The environmental impression examine that was carried out again in 1974 just about advised that placing any type of airship within the space was going to have vital impacts on the Everglades,” he mentioned.
Demonstrators maintain indicators as they protest President President Donald Trump’s go to to a migrant detention heart, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” situated on the website of the Dade-Collier Coaching and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, July 1, 2025.
Giorgio Viera/AFP by way of Getty Photos
The ability’s closeness to conventional Native camps, the place Miccosukee and Seminole members reside and train each American and Native schooling, has raised extra issues.
“We’re involved about security… CBP, additionally simply basically, all of the site visitors that is going to be coming by way of there, and flights coming out and in,” Cypress mentioned.
Throughout the tour with Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump highlighted the ability’s distant location.
Beds are seen inside a migrant detention heart, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” situated on the website of the Dade-Collier Coaching and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Fla., July 1, 2025.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP by way of Getty Photos
“It is very applicable, as a result of I appeared outdoors and it is not a spot I wish to go mountain climbing anytime quickly,” Trump mentioned. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swamp land, and the one manner out is basically deportation.”
ABC Information correspondent Victor Oquendo reported that the administration sees the encircling wildlife, together with alligators and pythons, as a pure barrier for the detention heart, stopping migrants from having the ability to escape.
The ability may change into a mannequin for related facilities deliberate in Louisiana and Alabama, Trump informed ABC Information.
New information studied by ABC Information exhibits a shift in enforcement priorities, with extra arrests of migrants with no felony report. DHS responded that 70% of ICE arrests have been migrants with a felony report.
Cypress ended with a message to Trump and DeSantis: “President Trump and DeSantis have been excellent to the Everglades, and we really feel like [this is a] step backwards of their effort.”
