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Companies hired by the state of Florida to operate the Alligator Alcatraz detention center were notified Tuesday afternoon that the facility is being shut down, with the remaining 1,400 detainees expected to be removed in the coming weeks, four sources familiar with the announcement told CBS News Miami. The closure comes amid escalating operating costs for the facility, which are now estimated to total nearly $1 billion.
“They said the last detainee will leave in June,” one source said.
The decision to close the facility has been speculated about for the past week, with Gov. Ron DeSantis saying he expected it to close soon. “If we shut the lights out tomorrow, we will be able to say it served its purpose,” DeSantis said last week during a news conference.
Tuesday’s announcement to the vendors is the first formal acknowledgment that the facility was closing and would wind down relatively quickly. Officials from the Florida Department of Emergency Management delivered the news to the vendors at the site. Kevin Guthrie, director of FDEM, did not return calls seeking comment. But FDEM spokesperson Stephanie Hartman provided a statement to CBS News Tuesday evening.
“As Governor DeSantis stated last week, the South Florida detention facility was always intended to serve as a temporary facility to support ongoing illegal immigration enforcement and detention operations,” Hartman said. “If federal operational needs evolve and the Department of Homeland Security implements alternative plans for the South Florida detention facility, the state will pivot accordingly.”
Once the approximately 1,400 people currently held at the facility are removed — either transferred to other detention centers or deported — state officials told vendors the process to “demobilize” the site will begin. This will involve taking down fencing, removing trailers and other structures built at the site, which is located in the middle of the Everglades. That demobilization is expected to take another two to three weeks. After demobilization is complete, the site will reopen as a small airport used to train pilots.
The decision to close Alligator Alcatraz was driven primarily by the escalating cost of operating the facility, which was once hailed by President Trump as a model for other states to emulate.
The detention center, DeSantis’s brainchild, opened on July 3, 2025, and was built using state tax money. DeSantis previously maintained that the state would be reimbursed by the federal government for all its expenses. State officials submitted a $608 million request at the end of last year, which was eventually approved by federal officials. However, the actual reimbursement has been held up because of court challenges, environmental concerns and other issues.
In the months that followed the initial request, the state is estimated to have incurred an additional $300 million in costs associated with running the detention center. Three sources told CBS News Miami that while it appears the state will ultimately be reimbursed for the initial $608 million, there is no guarantee the subsequent $300 million will be covered by the federal government.
The realization that state taxpayers could be forced to pay for that additional amount prompted the sense of urgency to close the facility.
“Every day that it stays open, it is state taxpayers who will be paying the cost,” one source said.
Added a second source familiar with the vendor contracts: “We have been told that we should be paid [from that original $608 million request] in the next few weeks, but the state is going to have to pick up the difference or work with the feds to convince them to pick up the balance.”
The final cost to Florida taxpayers will likely not be known until after the facility shuts down.
“Floridians deserve accountability for every dollar wasted and every abuse that took place behind those doors.” Democratic Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who has been a vocal critic of the facility, said in a statement Tuesday. Frost visited the facility last August and describing it as “inhumane” and an “internment camp.”
“From the day ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ opened, I was on the ground conducting oversight into the inhumane conditions inside this facility — and I went back again and again to expose what was happening and fight to shut it down,” Frost said in his statement. “Now, after wasting millions in taxpayer dollars and facing ongoing environmental lawsuits, this failed experiment in human suffering is finally closing.”
