Q: Are FEMA funds being used to construct an immigrant detention facility in the Everglades?
A: Yes, the immigrant detention facility in Florida, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” is being “funded largely” by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Shelter and Services Program, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said. The funding does not come from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund.
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An immigration detention center has been constructed and was expected to open this week on an airfield in the Everglades, about 45 miles west of Miami, Florida, to house as many as 5,000 detainees before deportation. State officials dubbed the facility “Alligator Alcatraz” because the surrounding swampy area is inhabited by alligators, pythons and mosquitoes, and its isolation is reminiscent of the infamous, former federal prison on an island in San Francisco Bay.
We received several emails from readers asking about the facility and whether it was being funded by FEMA.
The initial $450 million needed to create and operate the detention center in its first year was provided by the state of Florida, WINK News reported. The state will seek reimbursement through FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, not the agency’s Disaster Relief Fund, which supports recovery efforts associated with major disasters and emergencies. As we’ve written, the Disaster Relief Fund receives separate funding from Congress.
The Shelter and Services Program was approved by Congress and created in 2023 under the Biden administration “to alleviate overcrowding in short-term [Customs and Border Protection] holding facilities and support non-federal entities with shelter and related activities for noncitizens released from [Department of Homeland Security] custody and awaiting their immigration court proceedings,” a 2024 DHS report explained.
But DHS Secretary Noem said the purpose of that FEMA program has shifted.
Noem said in an Instagram post on July 1, the day she toured the facility with President Donald Trump, “Alligator Alcatraz will be funded largely by FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, which the Biden administration used as a piggy bank to spend hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to house illegal aliens … Before this program was used to house criminal illegal aliens. Now, it is being used to detain criminal illegal aliens while they await deportation.”
Asked about the funding for the detention center, a FEMA spokesperson told us in an email, “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens. We will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida.”
The Trump administration previously objected to federal funding to assist and house migrants, and in February it clawed back $80 million from New York City that FEMA had transferred for that purpose under the Shelter and Services Program. Trump falsely claimed in 2024 that the Biden administration redirected and depleted FEMA funds intended for disaster relief to shelter and help migrants, as we’ve written.
During the tour of the Florida facility on July 1, Trump said, “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland and the only way out is, really, deportation,” the Associated Press reported. “This is an amazing thing that they’ve done here,” Trump said.
The detention center consists of tents, trailers and temporary buildings, with rows of bunk beds surrounded by chain-link fencing, the AP reported. Officials told the AP that detainees will have access to medical care, air conditioning and a recreation yard, and will receive “support from attorneys and members of the clergy.”
There have been escapes at immigration detention facilities in the past. Three men escaped from a facility in Colorado in 2019 and were recaptured days later, according to a press release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Four men escaped June 12 from a detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, and three had been caught by June 17, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported.
ICE is currently holding about 59,000 people in detention facilities across the country, CBS News reported.
We reached out to DHS for information about security and the frequency of escapes at immigrant detention facilities, but we didn’t receive a response.
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