Trump Tours Florida’s New Illegal-Alien ‘Alcatraz,’ Where Guards Take ‘Form of Alligators’  

President Donald Trump toured a new detention center for illegal aliens referred to as “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Florida Everglades on Tuesday.  

“I mean, you don’t always have land so beautiful and so secure,” Trump said of the location of the detention facility after stepping off Air Force One in Florida.  

“They have a lot of bodyguards and a lot of cops that are the form of alligators. You don’t have to pay them so much,” Trump said with a smile. “But I wouldn’t want to run through the Everglades for long. We’ll keep people where they’re supposed to be.” 

“It might be as good as the real Alcatraz,” Trump said of the facility, referring to long-closed prison in San Francisco Bay.

The detention center currently can hold 3,000 illegal aliens, but Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who accompanied the president on his tour, said the goal is to quickly process the illegal aliens through the facility. Florida’s primary National Guard facility, six hours north of the Everglades, will hold 2,000 additional detained illegal aliens. 

“We’re offering up our National Guard and other folks in Florida to be deputized to be immigration judges,” DeSantis said. Once approved by the Department of Justice, “I’ll have a National Guard judge advocate here,” he added.  

“Someone has a notice to appear, [President Joe Biden] would tell them to come back in three years and appear” for a hearing, DeSantis said. “Now, you’ll be able to appear in, like, a day or two, so they’re not going to be detained, hopefully, for all that long” before being deported.

DeSantis also pushed back on claims that the facility poses an environmental threat to the Everglades, explaining that the facility has been set up on a concrete runway and taxiway at an airport that was built years ago.  

“I don’t think those are valid and even good-faith criticisms, because it’s not going to impact the Everglades at all,” DeSantis said of the detention facility.  

Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said the “fully compliant detention facility … includes over 158,000 square feet of housing. It is a fully aluminum frame structure rated for winds of 110 miles an hour,” Guthrie said, in reference to Florida’s upcoming hurricane season.

The facility also boasts backup generators, air conditioning, capability to provide detainees with three hot meals a day, a medical facility, indoor and outdoor recreation areas, clergy services, and space for up to 1,000 facility staffers, according to Guthrie.  

The detention facility has also been outfitted with more than 200 security cameras, 28,000 feet of barbed wire, and more than 400 security personnel.  

“This facility here is a fantastic representation of what can happen when all of government works together, and when it’s accountable to the taxpayers and to the citizens that live here,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said, seated beside the president at a press conference after the tour.  

Noem thanked DeSantis for working with the Trump administration to advance the president’s immigration agenda, and said she hopes her “phone rings off the hook from governors calling and saying, ‘How can we do what Florida just did?’”  

The president also said he hope other states follow Florida’s example and similar facilities are opened across the country.  

It has been estimated that more than 10 million illegal aliens entered the U.S. during the Biden administration, leading to Trump making border and immigration issues a pillar first of his campaign, and now his administration.  

“In five months, my administration has already arrested over 2,700 members of the murderous Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua, including a pack of these sadistic animals arrested last month with over 280 guns,” Trump told reporters.  

During Trump’s press conference at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Senate passed the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that includes much of Trump’s agenda, including additional resources to secure the southern border and prevent illegal immigration.  

“It shows that I care about you, because I’m here, and I probably should be there, but we do care,” Trump said when he learned the Senate had passed the bill, sending the amended version back to the House for a vote.  

“The One Big, Beautiful Bill includes funding for 3,000 new Border Patrol officers and 10,000 new [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents,” the president said.  

The House is operating under a tight deadline to pass the final version of the bill. Trump has said he would like to sign the legislation on Independence Day, July 4.  

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