A Florida Native American leader spoke out against a new migrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” raising environmental and safety concerns for local tribal communities.
President Trump, visiting the site Tuesday, said the facility will hold “some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.”
The detention center, built on a remote airstrip in the Everglades, can hold up to 5,000 migrants in tents and trailers.
A drone view shows the construction site of the state’s forthcoming “Alligator Alcatraz” ICE detention center at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, June 28, 2025.
AP
Talbert Cypress, chairman of the Miccosukee Business Council, said some tribal villages are located within 900 feet of the facility’s entrance.
“This proposed facility is surrounded on all sides by the Big Cypress National Preserve, and the tribe has been at home in the Big Cypress for centuries,” Cypress told ABC News.
Cypress pointed to the lack of environmental studies on what creating the detention center could mean for the local ecosystem.
“There’s been no environmental impact study done. The environmental impact study that was done back in 1974 pretty much suggested that putting any kind of airship in the area was going to have significant impacts on the Everglades,” he said.
Demonstrators hold signs as they protest President President Donald Trump’s visit to a migrant detention center, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, July 1, 2025.
Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images
The facility’s closeness to traditional Native camps, where Miccosukee and Seminole members live and teach both American and Native education, has raised more concerns.
“We’re concerned about safety… CBP, also just in general, all the traffic that’s going to be coming through there, and flights coming in and out,” Cypress said.
During the tour with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump highlighted the facility’s remote location.
Beds are seen inside a migrant detention center, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Fla., July 1, 2025.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s very appropriate, because I looked outside and it’s not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon,” Trump said. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swamp land, and the only way out is really deportation.”
ABC News correspondent Victor Oquendo reported that the administration sees the surrounding wildlife, including alligators and pythons, as a natural barrier for the detention center, stopping migrants from being able to escape.
The facility might become a model for similar centers planned in Louisiana and Alabama, Trump told ABC News.
New data studied by ABC News shows a shift in enforcement priorities, with more arrests of migrants with no criminal record. DHS responded that 70% of ICE arrests were migrants with a criminal record.
Cypress ended with a message to Trump and DeSantis: “President Trump and DeSantis have been very good to the Everglades, and we feel like [this is a] step backwards in their effort.”
