Located on a mostly abandoned airport once built to house supersonic jets, detainees would have to “know how to run away from an alligator” to escape the facility, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.
But for critics, it’s a dehumanising “theatricalisation of cruelty” that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to run each year.
What is Alligator Alcatraz?
The Dade-Collier airport was once destined to be the world’s largest airport and would have been five times the size of New York City’s JFK, but it never fulfilled its potential.
Instead, the 39-square-mile facility located about 50 miles from Miami has been used as a training facility for years – until now.
“This is an old, virtually abandoned airport facility right in the middle of the Everglades,” Florida’s attorney general James Uthmeier said as he introduced it last month. “I call it: Alligator Alcatraz.”
He touted it as an “efficient, low-cost opportunity” to build a “temporary” detention centre “because you don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter”.
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It’s believed that the facility could house 5,000 detainees when up and running and, according to CNN, will cost $450m (£328m) annually.
Mr Uthmeier added: “If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.”
People sent there will be housed in repurposed Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) emergency trailers and “soft-sided temporary facilities”.
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16:08
Trump 100 Podcast: What’s in the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’?
Trump visits new facility
“This is not a nice business,” Mr Trump said while leaving the White House. Then he joked that “we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison”, ahead of visiting the centre.
“Don’t run in a straight line. Run like this,” he said, as he moved his hand in a zigzag motion. “And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%.” According to the University of Florida, it’s actually best to dash in one direction in the rare situation when an alligator chases you.
Mr Trump is using ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ as a symbol of his border crackdown.
Image: Donald Trump has said he wants to see similar facilities in other US states. Pic: Reuters
He wants to pressure Congress to pass a sweeping spending bill this week, which would ramp up deportations.
After being given a tour of the centre, the US president said: “Pretty soon, this facility will handle the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.
“I looked outside and that’s not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon.
“We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland and the only way out is really deportation.”
Image: Trailers seen at the new detention centre. Pic: AP
Immigrants ‘do not deserve’ to be at facility
There has been heavy criticism of the detention centre from Democrats and activists, with protesters often gathering nearby.
Former congressman David Jolly, an ex-Republican who is now running for Florida governor as a Democrat, called the facility a “callous political stunt”.
“The fact that we’re going to have 3,000 people detained in tents, in the Everglades, in the middle of the hot Florida summer, during hurricane season, this is a bad idea all around that needs to be opposed and stopped,” Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst for the Florida Immigrant Coalition said, according to CNN.
Image: Protesters have gathered nearby to demonstrate against it. Pic: AP
“It’s like a theatricalisation of cruelty,” immigration activist Maria Asuncion Bilbao said.
Phyllis Andrews, a retired teacher who travelled to the area to protest against Mr Trump’s visit, said: “I have a lot of immigrants I have been working with. They are fine people. They do not deserve to be incarcerated here.
“It’s terrible that there’s a bounty on their head.”
Donald Trump has said he will cancel all executive orders that he claims were signed with an autopen by his predecessor Joe Biden.
The US president alleged Mr Biden was “not involved” in signing the orders and claimed “the radical left lunatics circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office took the presidency away from him”. He did not provide any evidence for his claims.
An autopen is a device which reproduces a person’s signature, allowing them to repeatedly sign documents without having to do so by hand each time.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said: “Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect.
“The Autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States.”
He added: “I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally.
“Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury.”
Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed Mr Biden was not mentally capable by the end of his term and his staff made decisions on his behalf, using an autopen to sign them off without his knowledge.
Mr Trump has not provided any evidence for his claims, while Mr Biden and his former aides have denied they made decisions on his behalf.
In June, Mr Biden said: “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency.
“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
Mr Trump has also used an autopen, but claimed he only used it “for very unimportant papers”.
Image: Pic: Reuters
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0:31
Trump trolls Biden with new ‘presidential portrait’
Earlier this year, Mr Trump replaced a portrait of Mr Biden in the Oval Office with a picture of an autopen signing the former president’s name.
The suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington DC is facing a first-degree murder charge.
It follows the death of one of the soldiers, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom.
The other soldier, Andrew Wolfe, 24, was taken to hospital in critical condition after the incident on Wednesday afternoon. On Friday, West Virginia’s governor said Wolfe remained in a “very critical condition”.
Image: Andrew Wolfe and Sarah Beckstrom. Pic: Reuters
US attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office said the suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, now faces charges including one count of first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.
Pirro said there are “many charges to come” beyond the upgraded murder charge and that Lakanwal had driven across the country to launch an “ambush-style” attack with a revolver.
She said her heart went out to the family of Beckstrom, who volunteered to serve and “ended up being shot ambush-style on the cold streets of Washington DC by an individual who will now be charged with murder in the first degree”.
President Donald Trump called Beckstrom, part of the West Virginia guard, a “highly respected” and “magnificent person”.
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Investigators are continuing to execute warrants in the state of Washington, where the suspect lived, and other parts of the country, Pirro said.
However, she declined to discuss the suspect’s motive, saying officials have been working around the clock on that question.
Officials said Lakanwal entered the US in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration programme that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the US’s chaotic withdrawal from the country.
Kristina Widman, who claims to be Lakanwal’s former landlord, said he had been living in Bellingham, close to Seattle, with his wife and five children.
The #AfghanEvac charity said Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration.
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2:44
Trump has called for every Afghan national who entered the US under Biden to be investigated following the shooting of two National Guard troops.
On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration.
The director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, said in a statement that the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible”.
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The President has since said he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the US by revoking their legal status.
Organisations that work with refugees are worried that those who fled dangerous situations to start again in America will face a backlash after the shooting.
The US will review green cards issued to the citizens of 19 countries after two members of the National Guard were shot by a suspected Afghan gunman in Washington DC.
Joseph Edlow, director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), revealed the order from President Trump.
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He wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous re-examination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.”
Asked which countries would be affected, USCIS pointed to a presidential proclamation from June listing 19 countries.
The proclamation sought to “fully restrict” arrivals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
It also “partially” restricted arrivals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
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Image: Rahmanullah Lakanwal.
Pic: Reuters
Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, has been named as the suspected gunman in this week’s shooting and has been detained.
He worked as part of a CIA-backed unit in Afghanistan, and reportedly came to the States under a programme meant to help Afghans who’d risked their lives assisting US troops in Afghanistan.
He’s thought to have driven thousands of miles to the capital from his home in Washington state, where he lives with his wife and five children.
Attorney general Pam Bondi called him “a lone gunman” who “opened fire without provocation, ambush style”.
Image: Gunfire in Washington DC sees two National Guard members shot
President Trump described him as a “savage monster”.
He was granted asylum in April this year, according to NBC News.
One of his victims, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, died of her wounds, while the other, Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in a critical condition.
Image: The two National Guard members who were shot in Washington D.C. as 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom and 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe. Pic: Reuters
Pic: Reuters
Lakanwal reportedly came to the US under Operation Allies Welcome, a programme enacted by former President Joe Biden after he pulled American forces out of Afghanistan in 2021.
Edlow explictly targeted the previous president as he announced the new green card regime.
He wrote on X: “The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies.”
Speaking after the attack, President Trump was even more caustic.
He said: “The suspect in custody is a foreigner, who entered our country from Afghanistan, a hellhole on Earth.
“He was flown in by the Biden administration in September 2021 on those infamous flights that everybody was talking about.
“His status was extended under legislation signed by President Biden – a disastrous president, the worst in the history of our country.”
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He continued: “This attack underscores the greatest national security threat facing our nation.
“The last administration let in 20 million unknown and unvetted foreigners from all over the world, from places that you don’t even want to know about.
“No country can tolerate such a risk to our very survival.”