Florida to Miami-Dade: No time to negotiate 'Alligator Alcatraz' plan. 'We must act swiftly'

Douglas Hanks, Miami Herald on Jun 24, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

MIAMI — While she asked state officials on Monday to slow down their push to build a deportation detainment camp in the Everglades, Miami-Dade’s mayor said Tuesday that she expects the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” to be holding its first immigrant detainees by next week.

“They’re working very quickly,” Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said of the planned detention center she’s warned could be devastating for the surrounding Everglades if not handled properly. “We asked for a very thorough review of what would be the impacts on our environment. We have not heard a response to that.”

Her comments came a day after the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis brushed off Levine Cava’s request for more details on environmental safeguards, safety issues and financial concerns before the state seized an isolated county-owned airfield for construction under emergency powers.

“Time is of the essence,” Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, wrote in a letter to Levine Cava on Monday. “We must act swiftly to ensure readiness and continuity in our statewide operations to assist the federal government with immigration enforcement.”

At an event Tuesday, Levine Cava conceded the governor has the authority to take over the county-run airfield, based on executive orders DeSantis signed during the Biden administration declaring a statewide emergency tied to what he called a crisis from illegal immigration.

In a letter to Guthrie on Monday, she raised concerns about potential environmental fallout to the swampy Everglades surrounding the airfield and urged the DeSantis administration to pay Miami-Dade more than the $20 million offered to the county for the land.

“We have registered our concerns,” Levine Cava, a Democrat, said after an unrelated groundbreaking ceremony for a new terminal at Miami International Airport. “We’re reviewing everything from a legal perspective. … They are exercising their rights to move in and start to develop that property.”

Levine Cava said she expects the temporary detainment camp to be up and running in a matter of days, with the first beds occupied as early as July 1.

In his letter, Guthrie said the state was still open to discussing terms for purchasing the county-owned property. “While the negotiations to purchase the property are underway, Division will begin immediate utilization of the improved area of the site,” Guthrie wrote.

Levine Cava did not criticize the overall DeSantis plan to bring a deportation detention center to the Miami area. She pointed out that this week she released a letter urging Congress to pursue immigration reform that includes allowing undocumented immigrants without criminal records to pursue legal residency in the United States, calling it a matter of “dignity, economic stability and moral leadership.”

Asked if she thought a state-run deportation detention center was a good idea, Levine Cava told reporters: “We believe that border control is important. We believe immigrant criminals should be held to account.” Levine Cava said by criminals, she meant people facing criminal charges unrelated to immigration violations.

She also said that while she has multiple concerns about the state’s plan for the airfield, Miami-Dade would like to part ways with the property. “We were in discussions about preservation of this property,” she said. “So the idea was to transfer it to the national park or some other entity that could protect it forever.”

In 2021, Rodney Barreto, chair of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, wrote Levine Cava to propose that Miami-Dade donate the airfield to the National Park Service, which runs the surrounding Big Cypress National Preserve. “The Jetport property is ecologically important to the health of the entire Everglades,” he wrote.

More recently, according to a source, Miami-Dade has been in talks with the DeSantis administration for more than two years about the state potentially purchasing the property for an emergency-management base for staging hurricane supplies. Part of the proposal would have preserved the bulk of the site and prevented any future development there.

That plan was still a possibility when the governor’s administration informed Miami-Dade it was seizing the property for the detention center.

A representative for the Miccosukee Tribe said it was also interested in potentially participating in a conservation effort there, too.

Curtis Osceola, senior executive policy adviser for the Miccosukee Tribe, said the tribe has been in loose talks with Miami-Dade to purchase the property for conservation.

“We were not in formal negotiations, but we are interested in the land, and we are interested in it for the purposes of conservation,” he said. “It is going to be vital that we restore those lands and restore the flow of water.”

_____

Miami Herald staff writers Ana Ceballos and Alex Harris contributed to this report.

_____