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The Conversation
The Conversation
Mark Schlakman, Senior Program Director, The Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, Florida State University

Florida is fronting the $450M cost of Alligator Alcatraz – a legal scholar explains what we still don’t know about the detainees

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leads a tour of the new Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention facility for President Donald Trump and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Andrew Cabellero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

The state of Florida has opened a migrant detention center in the Everglades. Its official name is Alligator Alcatraz, a reference to the former maximum security federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay.

While touring Alligator Alcatraz on July 1, 2025, President Donald Trump said, “This facility will house some of the menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.” But new reporting from the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times reveals that of more than 700 detainees, only a third have criminal convictions.

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