Lawmakers tour Florida’s new immigrant detention centre in the Everglades

US President President Donald Trump previously toured the migrant detention centre, located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Florida on July 1. Photo / AFP

Democratic lawmakers condemned an immigrant detention centre built in the Florida Everglades as costly and “inhumane” yesterday after touring the temporary facility.

The site, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by Florida Republicans, opened on July 3 and is housing 900 men in the South Florida wetlands.

More than two dozen state and federal lawmakers took a 2½ hour tour of the facility arranged by the office of Governor Ron DeSantis (Republican). It came weeks after several Democratic state lawmakers were turned away at the gate.

But Democrats said they were given a sanitised version of the detention centre, which includes tents for detainees, who are held in chain-link cells, and travel cubicles for staff. They said they were not permitted to speak to the detainees.

“Legislators were taken on a dog and pony show that confirmed our concerns about human rights violations and inhumane treatment and answered none of our questions,” state Senate Democratic leader Lori Berman said in a statement.

“We certainly saw nothing that justifies the half a billion dollars that this camp is going to cost Floridians.”

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Democrat-Florida) said in an interview that the detainees appeared crowded into cages. “There were eight cages of 32 detainees on either side, crammed in like sardines,” she said.

The lawmakers were not permitted to take any electronic devices on the tour, but Wasserman Shultz said she took a thermometer.

“It was 83 degrees [28C] at the threshold, which is as far as they would let us go inside the tents,” Wasserman Schultz said. “And I know it had to be even hotter in the middle of the tent.”

Florida Republicans who also toured the site said Democrats were misrepresenting the conditions at the detention centre.

“The place is well run, safe, secure, clean and air-conditioned,” state Senator Blaise Ingoglia, a Republican, said on X. “I actually laid down in one of the beds and it was really comfortable.”

DeSantis commandeered an infrequently used airstrip in the middle of the Everglades to set up what he has called a temporary, “makeshift” detention centre.

The facility was built in just eight days and state officials said it would cost US$450 million ($750m) to operate for one year. It will hold 3000 detainees, according to state officials.

Environmentalists sued, saying the state and federal government failed to conduct a required environmental assessment before moving tents and trailers onto the land.

The site is within the Big Cypress National Preserve, and next to Everglades National Park. The wetlands are part of the multi-decade, US$25 billion government effort to restore the Everglades.

Critics say DeSantis chose the location for optics more than security.

Before the site opened, the Republican Party of Florida began selling merchandise with fearsome looking alligators, and the Department of Homeland Security has posted photoshopped images of alligators and barbed wire fences on social media.

Republicans have defended the facility.

“We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland, and the only way out is really deportation,” US President Donald Trump said during a visit to the facility last week.

DeSantis’ office did not return a request for comment.

Other states are “using ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ as a model for how they can partner with us,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said.

After the tour, state Representative Lindsay Cross, a Democrat, said she remained concerned about the safety of the detainees, who were dressed in orange jumpsuits, and some of whom were shackled to benches.

“I’m really concerned about how you would evacuate, where you would house these people,” Cross, said in a post on Instagram. “And just what this says about us as a state, and a nation.”