Florida prepares to build a second immigration detention center to join 'Alligator Alcatraz'
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ' administration is apparently preparing to build a second immigration detention center, awarding at least one contract for what’s labeled in state records as the “North Detention Facility.”
The site would add to the capacity at the state's first detention facility, built at an isolated airfield in the Florida Everglades and dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz." Already, state officials have inked more than $245 million in contracts for that facility, which officially opened July 1.
Florida plans to build a second detention center at a Florida National Guard training center called Camp Blanding, about 27 miles (43 kilometers) southwest of downtown Jacksonville, though DeSantis has said the state is waiting for federal officials to ramp up deportations from the South Florida facility before building out the Camp Blanding site.
“We look forward to the increased cadence,” of deportations, DeSantis said last month, calling the state “ready, willing and able” to expand its operations.
Civil rights advocates and environmental groups have filed lawsuits against the Everglades facility, where detainees allege they've been forced to go without adequate food and medical care, and been barred from meeting with their attorneys, held without any charges and unable to get a federal immigration court to hear their cases.
President Donald Trump has touted the facility’s harshness and remoteness as fit for the “worst of the worst," while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said the South Florida detention center can serve as a model for other state-run holding facilities for immigrants.
