President Donald Trump’s Tuesday tour of “Alligator Alcatraz” – a new ICE detention facility in Ochopee, Florida – highlighted the state’s dedication to working together with the administration to deport illegal aliens who entered America during the Biden years.
The president was joined by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on the tour.
The facility, surrounded by miles of dangerous Everglades terrain, has become a model for the nation in terms of building migrant detention facilities.
While walking through the facility, the president invited the press to join them for the tour, occasionally taking questions and explaining how the ICE center would operate.
According to Gov. DeSantis, the first migrant could arrive at the facility as early as Wednesday.
“These people coming here, they want to go home – so we immediately send them home,” Trump said.
Secretary Noem agreed with Trump on Tuesday that many illegals in the U.S. are moving to self-deport rather than risk being arrested.
At the conclusion of the tour, the president joined the governor and other state leaders for a roundtable discussion on the facility’s operation.
“It’s a great honor to be deep in Florida, the Florida Everglades, to open America’s newest migrant detention center, it’s incredibly built,” he said. “…It’s known as Alligator Alcatraz which is very appropriate, because I looked outside and it’s not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon.”
The president said “very soon” the facility would house “some of the most menacing migrants – some of the most vicious people on the planet.”
He described the swampland surrounding the detention center as “treacherous” and said “the only way out, really, is deportation.”
Trump emphasized the importance of removing illegal migrants from American soil, explaining that the average illegal “costs the American taxpayers an estimated $70,000.”
He added, “If you care about balancing the budget, the single most impactful step we can take is to fully reverse the Biden migration invasion…that’s why the One Big Beautiful Bill includes funding for 3,000 new Border Patrol officers and 10,000 new ICE agents.”
On Tuesday, the OBBB passed the U.S. Senate in a narrow vote of 51-50 and will now return to the House for approval of changes.
