Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump will head to Florida this week to attend the opening of the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center.
The president will be joined by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem. She recently spoke about the facility during a Fox News interview.
The host referenced an incident where a group of illegal migrants escaped from a New Jersey detention center, asking if the location of the new facility was designed to deter would-be escapees.
Noem said that coordination with local law enforcement was a priority for the Trump administration, and that Florida’s attorney general had originally suggested the location.
She commended Republican Ron DeSantis for stepping up and following through with the idea and spoke of an illegal migrant cannibal who attempted to eat his own arm during a detention flight.
Noem remarked, “This is the kind of people that President Trump is getting off our streets. People who are murders and rapists, and are deranged individuals that we are working to get out of this country as fast as possible. So, Alligator Alcatraz is the future. This is states who are stepping up and helping us solve this problem of making sure that when we arrest these people, they have somewhere to go to be processed so that we can get them out of this country and face the consequences for their crimes.”
The establishment of the remote facility in the swampy Everglades was coordinated between the Trump administration and the state of Florida to detain illegal migrants awaiting deportation.
According to The Hill, the site will feature federally funded, soft-sided holding units to house hundreds of detainees. Florida’s Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) oversees the construction and management of the facility.
The outlet also reported that additional holding units will be added over the next month. The facility will cost around $450 million per year and will be funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program, which was used to pay for housing asylum seekers during the Biden-Harris administration.
According to plans released by DHS, the detention center will house illegal migrants arrested in Florida as well as those transferred by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
