Even with President Trump’s approval ratings regarding border security and the deportation of illegal aliens, the numbers of illegals within the country with zero rights to remain here are still astronomically high.

This is why Florida, and the Trump administration, are touting the creation of “Alligator Alcatraz” and what it signifies to illegals and the public at large. Credit for Alligator Alcatraz goes to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (who was appointed to the job when Pam Bondi moved on to become United States Attorney General), and has been organized with amazing speed thanks to existing facilities.

Uthmeier hatched the plan for Alligator Alcatraz in near-secret and worked with DeSantis’s office and the Department of Homeland Security to avoid any opposition before it was too late for significant opposition to materialize.

DHS has blessed the project with $450 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s “Shelter and Services Program,” which President Biden had tapped to help house migrants in hotels to welcome them to the United States.

Now the Trump administration is using that program to detain and help deport them.

The site is owned by Miami-Dade County, but DeSantis is developing the site and essentially taking it over by exercising emergency authority he granted himself in 2023 to deal with a flood of migrants who came during the Biden administration.

Alligator Alcatraz is surrounded by wetlands of the Big Cypress National Preserve next to Everglades National Park and is almost dead center between the East and West coasts of Florida.

The nearly 25,000-acre site is not pristine wetlands, however. It’s a one-runway airplane facility called the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.

Alligator Alcatraz: the one-stop shop to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda. pic.twitter.com/96um2IXE7U

— Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) June 19, 2025

While some on the left are decrying Alligator Alcatraz as a concentration camp on X (and yes, the isolation and location of the camp do share similarities with those the federal government under FDR chose for Japanese American internment camps, though the circumstances – American citizens being imprisoned versus illegal migrants being held for deportation – are not comparable), the facility itself is designed to be a stopping point, not a permanent containment. And the point is to undo some of the damage done, via omission and commission, by the Biden administration. President Trump went to the Everglades to check out the facility (which also allowed the media to get an inside look) and praised Florida officials for what they have designed. And as those on the tour discovered today, Alligator Alcatraz even has air conditioning, so this is hardly a “concentration camp.”

The 3,000-bed facility is set to become the largest migrant detention center in the U.S., built as part of the Trump administration’s effort to deport the millions who flooded the country under the Biden administration.

Florida National Guard members will be deputized as immigration judges, allowing migrants to have hearings within 48 hours, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said, while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warned illegal migrants to self-deport or else risk ending up at the facility.

“Worst of the worst always first and I think it’s great government what we’ve done,” Trump said on the airport ramp shortly after disembarking Air Force One.

“Nobody can ever forget what this group of people, Biden or whoever it was. It probably wasn’t even Biden, I don’t think he knew what the hell he was doing. A small group of people who surrounded the Resolute Desk, what they did to this country.”

Trump praised the facility as “beautiful, so secure,” with alligators and law enforcement portraying a hardline image.

After touring the facility, Trump said that some of the most “menacing migrants” will be held there. “Some of the most vicious people on the planet,” Trump said. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland, and the only way out is really deportation.”

DeSantis, who flanked Trump with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, said the facility was built using the airport’s existing concrete infrastructure, with temporary structures providing essential services like the beds, medical care and food preparation.

The governor said the center will be used to fast-track immigration cases.

“We’re offering up our National Guard and other folks in Florida to be deputized to be immigration judges,” De Santis said.

“We’ll have people here in this facility that can make [legal decisions]… Someone has a notice to appear — Biden would tell him to come back in three years… here, you’ll be able to appear like a day or two.”

Noem acknowledged the collaboration between Florida and DHS, framing it as a potential model for other states.

“Florida was unique in what they presented to us, and I would ask every other governor to do the exact same thing,” Noem said. “This is unique because we can hold individuals here. They can have their hearings. It’s a process.”

She also warned illegal migrants to self-deport or else risk being detained at the high-security facility.

“They don’t have to come here, if they self-deport and go home, they can come back legally,” Noem said. “But if you wait and we bring you to this facility, you don’t ever get to come back to America. You don’t get the chance to come back and be an American again.”

The visit to Florida also gave President Trump the opportunity to fully bury the hatchet with Governor Ron DeSantis.

“Ron, I’d like to thank you personally,” Trump told DeSantis at a roundtable event.

“You’re my friend, you’ll always be my friend, and we may have some skirmishes even in the future, I doubt it, but we’ll always come back because we have blood that seems to match pretty well,” the president continued. “We have a relationship that has been a strong one for a very long time and I appreciate it.”

And when Trump was asked about former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s role in the failure to secure the border and the influx of illegal aliens (for which the Democrats blocked his impeachment), the president sounded open to looking into what could be done legally now.

Video of Trump’s response to my question: pic.twitter.com/rjNBH7hHEJ

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) July 1, 2025

The value of Alligator Alcatraz isn’t so much its existence, though its ability to process, adjudicate, and deport illegal aliens will certainly be vital. The value in such a place is psychological. The idea of an Alligator Alcatraz – a detainment center surrounded by a moat, or a swamp full of alligators (even if that isn’t quite the reality) – is not a pleasant one. When coupled with the intent that it will be a “one-stop shop” for illegal aliens to stand before an immigration judge and go through the process all in a single location, followed by deportation via the single runway at the airport, its effectiveness could be profound.

The Trump administration is trying to convince illegals that staying in the country, risking arrest and deportation, is a lot more hazardous than leaving on their own terms. A place like Alligator Alcatraz has the psychological effect of making illegals think twice about staying, and possibly deciding to self-deport. It’s already winning in the war of imagination. Now we have to see just how effective it will be in reality, beginning tomorrow.

Featured image via warrior-on-ice on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license