Lawmakers visited Alligator Alcatraz. Here's what they say they saw and learned

Siena Duncan, Miami Herald on Jul 12, 2025

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OCHOPEE, Fla. — For the first time since detainees began arriving at Florida’s makeshift immigrant detention center in the Everglades this month, the DeSantis administration on Saturday gave the outside world a brief glimpse inside Alligator Alcatraz, offering limited, guided tours to members of Congress and the Florida Legislature.

Just before noon, Democratic and Republican lawmakers entered the facility — without their phones — to tour the tents and trailers erected at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport off of U.S. Highway 41. Afterward, they told press gathered outside the perimeter that, over a period of about two hours, they saw the food given to detainees, met with administrators and were given a tour of a new, empty dorm.

At one point, they said their guide briefly opened the door to an occupied living quarters, where detainees began to shout “Libertad!” Guards stood between the lawmakers and detainees.

The visit is one of the state’s first steps toward transparency at a hastily erected site housing hundreds of migrant detainees slated for deportation by the federal government. Several lawmakers said they were told by the director of the Division of Emergency Management, which oversees the site, that the plan is to deport all detainees within two weeks of their arrival.

The DeSantis administration has so far refused to release a list of the men housed at the facility, or say how many people are kept in its cells, built inside heavy duty tents. Several lawmakers said the few staffers who would speak to them told them roughly 900 migrants are being detained on site.

Attorneys and families say they have had trouble locating detainees, who during the first days of operations have shared stories of toilets that don’t flush, extreme temperatures and low-quality food. The day after the first detainees arrived, Democrats were turned away at the gates. The state has ignored the Miami Herald’s requests to visit the facility.

But after touring the site, Republican state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia said the facility looked nothing like the poor descriptions laid out over the last week in press reports. He said he took the opportunity to lay down in one of the beds for detainees, describing it as “better than my bed at home.”

“The first thing I will tell you is that the rhetoric does not match the reality of what you guys have been hearing from Democrats, especially congressional Democrats. It’s actually a well-run facility,” Ingoglia told reporters. “The idea that the detainees are in there and they’re in squalid conditions is just not accurate.”

Before entering, Democrats, who have wanted to conduct unannounced tours of the facility, expressed skepticism about whether their limited view would reflect the day-to-day reality for detainees. “We expect they will show us little to nothing,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost brought along a binder filled with photos of people he said his constituents had asked him to look for while inside. Frost and others said they were denied access to speak with any of the detainees, without explanation.

Afterward, they didn’t directly dispute Ingoglia’s comments about the cleanliness of the detention center, but said they had been kept from getting a good look at the bathroom and living facilities that are currently being used by detainees. Wasserman Schultz said she brought a thermometer that showed the temperature at roughly 83 degrees at the threshold to a dorm where detainees were being held. She also noted that food portions appeared to be smaller at the Everglades facility than in the Krome Detention Center.

Democrats also focused on what they said they learned at the facility: They said officials clarified repeatedly that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “calling the shots” at the detention center — an open question after the agency’s acting deputy associate director of enforcement and removal operations downplayed federal involvement.

In a declaration filed in response to a lawsuit by environmental groups challenging the facility’s operations, Thomas P. Giles wrote that ICE’s role concerning the development of the site “has been limited to touring the facility to ensure compliance with ICE detention standards, and meeting with officials from the State of Florida to discuss operational matters.”

“The ultimate decision of who to detain” at Alligator Alcatraz, he wrote, “belongs to Florida.”

ICE has repeatedly deferred press questions about the facility to the state of Florida.

Democrats said there are 32 detainees per “cage,” that detainees are given color-coded wristbands to identify those with criminal convictions, and that private contractors appeared to be largely staffing the interior of the facility.

They also said they plan to return.

“I can tell you many of us will be back for unannounced visits to see how things are,” Frost said.

A Division of Emergency Management spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the details relayed by lawmakers.