Trump Plans Visit To Florida’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Amid Protests, Lawsuit

President Donald Trump is expected to visit Florida’s new illegal alien detention facility, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” after protesters descended on the site over the weekend.

Construction began on the site — which Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called “an old, virtually abandoned airport facility right in the middle of the Everglades” — earlier this month. According to a statement by Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin, the costs of construction will be paid in part by a Biden-era FEMA program originally used to house illegal aliens in upscale hotels.

Uthmeier proposed the site in response to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s crackdown on illegal aliens, which has led to a record number of arrests. He says the site “is ideal because of its surrounding area. It’s a low-cost, already developed 30 square mile area surrounded by the Everglades.”

Trump is expected to tour the facilities on Tuesday, at which point the facility should be fully operational. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the trip in a briefing Monday, saying the president was visiting to “underscore the need to pass the Big, Beautiful Bill,” which she said will help fund the construction of much-needed detention facilities.

Alligator Alcatraz will reportedly hold 5,000 illegal immigrants as they await deportation from the on-site runway. Amenities at the site include beds, laundry facilities, air conditioning, and medical care — the same Florida uses for hurricane relief, according to DeSantis.

Still, critics have slammed the facility as inhumane.

“Anyone who supports this is a disgusting excuse for a human being, let alone a public servant,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL).

On Saturday, demonstrators lined the highway between Miami and the facility to protest its construction. In addition to claiming the facility is inhumane, they object to its location in the Everglades, which they say will harm the local ecosystem as well as the nearby Native American community.

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of the Everglades have filed a lawsuit to stop construction at the site. These groups claim that the new project bypasses existing environmental laws and threatens the Everglades’ ecosystem.

“This scheme is not only cruel, it threatens the Everglades ecosystem that state and federal taxpayers have spent billions to protect,” said Eve Samples, the executive director of Friends of the Everglades.

“This is a lazy lawsuit,” McLaughlin said in response. “This land has been developed for over a decade now, so these environmental concerns have been fully handled by the State of Florida.”

DeSantis echoed this statement in a press conference Monday, saying, “I think people are just trying to use the Everglades as a pretext for the fact that they oppose immigration enforcement.”

“We have the president of the United States coming down tomorrow to tout what Florida has done,” DeSantis said.

Leavitt confirmed DeSantis’s statement and added that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem would also tour the site. Leavitt praised DeSantis’s construction of the Alligator Alcatraz detention facility, which she said was a testament to Trump’s devotion to deporting criminal illegal aliens.