A Florida Native American chief spoke out towards 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 few of the most menacing migrants, a few of the most vicious individuals on the planet.”
The detention middle, constructed on a distant airstrip within the Everglades, can maintain as much as 5,000 migrants in tents and trailers.
A drone view reveals the development website of the state’s forthcoming “Alligator Alcatraz” ICE detention middle 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 toes of the ability’s entrance.
“This proposed facility is surrounded on all sides by the Massive Cypress Nationwide Protect, and the tribe has been at residence within the Massive Cypress for hundreds of years,” Cypress instructed ABC Information.
Cypress pointed to the dearth of environmental research on what creating the detention middle might imply for the native ecosystem.
“There’s been no environmental impression examine completed. The environmental impression examine that was completed again in 1974 just about advised that placing any form 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 middle, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” situated on the website of the Dade-Collier Coaching and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, July 1, 2025.
Giorgio Viera/AFP through Getty Pictures
The power’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 typically, all of the visitors that is going to be coming by means 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 middle, 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 through Getty Pictures
“It’s extremely acceptable, as a result of I regarded outdoors and it isn’t a spot I need to go mountain climbing anytime quickly,” Trump mentioned. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swamp land, and the one approach out is actually 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 middle, stopping migrants from having the ability to escape.
The power would possibly turn out to be a mannequin for related facilities deliberate in Louisiana and Alabama, Trump instructed ABC Information.
New information studied by ABC Information reveals a shift in enforcement priorities, with extra arrests of migrants with no felony document. DHS responded that 70% of ICE arrests have been migrants with a felony document.
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.”
