The “Alcatraz de los Caimanes”: the controversial detention center for migrants that builds USA in the middle of a swamp in Miami

Aerial image of the training and transition airport Dade-Collier. Video screen capture published by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. — Photo foot, Aerial image of the Training and Transition Airport Dade-Collier where the so-called “Alcatraz de los Caimanes” is being built.

- Author, Cecilia Barría and Walter Fojo
- Author's title, BBC News World
1 hour

Walking through a swampy area with two armed police and heavy metal music in the background, Florida's attorney, James Uthmeier, says in a video published on his social networks that a detention center for undocumented migrants will be established in that wetland.

Uthmeier explains that the state of Florida, under the political control of Republicans, has been supporting the Donald Trump government in its deportation policy and in the search for new centers to house detainees.

“I think this is the best: I call it the Alcatraz de los Caimanes,” says the prosecutor, referring to the federal maximum security prison that worked in the San Francisco Bay between 1934 and 1963.

“It is not necessary to invest so much in the perimeter. If people go out, they don't expect much more than Caimanes and pythons“.

The construction of the new detention center, whose works began this week, is a rehabilitation of the Dade-Collier Transition Airport, located about 70 kilometers from the center of Miami, in the middle of the Everglades, a subtropical wetland of great ecological importance that houses a national park with the same name declared by UNESCO as the international reserve of the Biosphere and Heritage of Humanity.

The airport where the immigration detention center will be located basically consists of a landing floor for pilot training surrounded by a vast extension of swamps and marshes.

Video screen capture posted by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. — Photo foot, Florida's attorney general James Uthmeier, along with two police officers in the Everglades.

Following the Us-41 West road, also known as the Tamiami path, we travel from Miami to the entrance of the airport following a surprising road for its scenic beauty.

Full of mosquitoes and with an overwhelming summer heat, we managed to advance just a few meters inside the enclosure until, as we had imagined, a guard in a van blocked the access.

Installed at the entrance of the property, we observe a constant parade of trucks transporting tents, construction materials, portable baths and other loads difficult to identify.

The urgency to enable the detention center as soon as possible seemed evident.

Suddenly, a rapid movement in the water of a small channel that runs just at the entrance of the enclosure, followed by a sound from the vegetation, made us ask ourselves if it would be fish, vipers or the hundreds of falls that wore through the wetland and that occasionally approach the road.

Emergency powers

While the property where the landing floor is located belongs to Miami-Dade County, the decision to turn it into a detention center was taken by the authorities of the state of Florida under an executive order issued in 2023 by Governor Ron Desantis, invoking emergency powers to contain the flow of undocumented migrants.

The new center, which according to prosecutor Ushmeier will have an ability to receive more than 1,000 detainees and will begin operations in July, is quickly becoming one of the most controversial symbols of the Trump government's migratory offensive.

And it is not the only one. Dozens of other facilities are being conditioned for the same purpose, since the government needs a prison infrastructure that allows it to house the detainees, while accelerating the rhythm of deportations.

Maps with location of the new detention center.

Since the undocumented migrant is arrested, until he addresses a plane to another country, they can spend weeks or months, and various reports of human rights organizations indicate that the centers are overcrowded to the point that in many they must sleep on the ground.

According to data obtained by the CBS news chain, the Customs Immigration and Control Service (ICE, for its English figures) has a record of 59,000 detainees throughout the country, which represents a use above 140% of its capacity.

The detention center is “cruel and absurd”

In the vicinity of the so -called “Alcatraz de los Caimanes” Vive Betty Osceola, a member of the Miccosukee indigenous community that has inhabited the area for generations.

The weekend he participated in a peaceful demonstration against the new detention center at the entrance of the airport and in recent days he has also witnessed the relentless passage of trucks that enter loaded and leave empty.

He does not believe that the detention center is a temporary solution, as the authorities have raised. In practice, he says, its operation could be extended for months or even years.

“I have serious concerns about environmental damage,” Osceola told BBC Mundo, while we talked to the side of a channel through which a little caiman swam.

And, in addition, he is worried about the conditions in which the detainees are going to live.

Photo foot, Entrance to the training and transition airport Dade-Collier, Everglades, Florida.

Those same concerns have been expressed by environmental organizations, as friends of Everglades, and by organizations dedicated to the defense of human rights in the USA.

The American union for civil liberties (ACLU) in Florida, described the initiative as “cruel and absurd” and argued that there is no justification to enclose people in isolated and dangerous environments, much less in a center “designed in the image of one of the most infamous prisons in the history of the United States.”

Even detention centers in populated areas, the organization added, have well -documented history of medical negligence, denial of legal access and abuse.

“Building one in a remote and swampy place will only aggravate these conditions.”

We contacted the Florida Attorney Office to talk about all these doubts, but we have not received an answer.

The position of the prosecutor Uthmeier on the new facilities in the Everglades was clearly established in the video that he disseminated in his social networks, where he ensures that the detention center is an “efficient and low -cost opportunity” to implement the mass deportation agenda of President Trump.

With the “Alcatraz de los Caimanes,” he says in the video, there will be “any place to go, any place to hide.”

The cost

The Secretary of National Security of the United States, Kristi Noem. — Photo foot, The United States National Security Secretary Kristi Noem says that the new detention center is part of the profitable and innovative initiatives.

Expanding, adapting or building new detention centers has been one of the stones in the government shoe to accelerate arrests.

The Secretary of National Security, Kristi Noem, said in statements sent to BBC Mundo that the state of Florida will receive federal funds to establish the new detention center, one of the critical points of the debate on the origin of the resources to finance this type of operations.

Under the leadership of President Trump, Noem said, “we are working at full machine in profitable and innovative ways to fulfill the mandate of the American people to massively deport undocumented immigrants criminals.”

“We will expand the facilities and the space to sleep in just a few days, thanks to our collaboration with Florida,” he added.

Noem explained that the “Alcatraz de los Caimanes” will be financed largely by the refuge and services program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency of the National Security Department responsible for coordinating the response to disasters at the federal level.

Enabling a detention center for more than a thousand people require a significant injection of resources.

Daniella Levine Cava, Democratic mayor of the Miami-Dade County, to whom the territory where the landing floor is belonging, argues that he asked the state of Florida in relation to the concerns about the project.

In a statement sent to BBC Mundo by Rachel Johnson, spokesman for the mayor's cabinet, he said that “although we understand that the attorney general has declared that federal approvals have been received for the project, we have not yet received a response from the State.”

“The county has serious concerns about the environmental impact on the Everglades,” he added.

While in cities such as Los Angeles, California, migratory raids have increased, in Miami and southern Florida, the offensive seems to be a little less widespread, although there is no detailed information about how many are the detainees, where they are and who they have a police record.

Many undocumented Latinos prefer to leave their homes as little as possible for fear of being arrested and sent to centers such as the “Alcatraz de los Caimanes” that, according to official projections, would open its doors in the coming weeks.

Everything seems to indicate that the project will continue.

At least that is what can be seen from the entrance to the enclosure where the flow of trucks is incessant in the middle of an extremely hot wetland where the detainees will live while waiting for their deportation.