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The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the state of Florida emptied this Tuesday the detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz, located in the southern Everglades of Florida, transferring all its detainees to other facilities ahead of the hurricane season.
"As the hurricane season begins, ICE and the state of Florida have moved undocumented immigrants from the temporary facility," confirmed the federal agency, which justified the measure as a guarantee for "the safety of the undocumented detainees."
The authorities did not specify how many people were relocated or to which centers they were sent.
The closure comes after months of complaints about the conditions inside the facility and an operational cost that, according to records obtained by the environmental organization Friends of the Everglades, amounted to approximately 1.2 million dollars per day, with total expenses exceeding 1.1 billion dollars as of this June.
Among those who passed through Alligator Alcatraz, there is a significant number of Cubans, many of whom are elderly individuals with decades of residency in the United States. According to a report by Human Rights Watch published on May 27, 2026, titled “They Leave Us Here to Die,” between January 2025 and March 2026, 4,353 Cubans were deported to Mexico, making them the largest national group among those deported to that country.
Of the 53 deported individuals interviewed by HRW, 41 were Cuban and 17 were 60 years old or older; the oldest was 83 years old.
Documented cases include the Cuban Rafael Enrique Migolla, 73 years old, who arrived in the United States in 1991 and was deported to Mexico, where he lives in an irregular condition in Villahermosa, Tabasco. Also Felipe Muñoz, 70 years old with over thirty years in the country, and Lázaro Romero León, 59 years old with the same length of residence, who became homeless in Tapachula after being deported.
The center was built in just eight days using state emergency powers and inaugurated by Trump and DeSantis in July 2025, at the former Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, within the Big Cypress National Preserve. Although its announced capacity was between 3,000 and 5,000 detainees, in April 2026 it housed an average daily population of around 1,400 people.
Almost 60% of the detainees were classified by ICE as "not a threat," meaning they had no prior criminal convictions, which contradicts the original justification by the authorities for building the facility.
"When it was built without public participation, right in the heart of the Everglades last summer, authorities said they needed to locate it there because they were going to house the worst of the worst. And it's clear that this is not the case," stated Eve Samples, Executive Director of Friends of the Everglades.
The organization filed a lawsuit claiming that the state did not conduct the environmental assessment required by federal regulations before opening the center, and that at least 20 acres of new asphalt were laid in the Everglades without any public process.
Detained reported inhumane conditions inside the facility: overcrowding of between 27 and 32 people per cage, non-potable water, insufficient food, and delays of up to 72 hours to receive medical care.
Florida expected to receive over 600 million dollars in federal reimbursements for the operation of the center, but that payment has been stalled without a clear timeline for disbursement.
Friends of the Everglades announced that they will continue litigating until achieving the permanent closure of the facility. "I believe that, when all is said and done, it will be seen as a dark chapter in the history of the Everglades," concluded Samples.
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