A Florida state representative says she received a text from a member of Congress that Alligator Alcatraz is closing in June, just under a year since it opened in east Collier County,
Florida State Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, told the Naples Daily News and Fort Myers News-Press on Tuesday night that she received a text from a member of congress that said it was closing. “I did contact FDEM for confirmation but haven’t heard back yet,” she said in a voice message sent by text Tuesday night.
The interview with Eskamani followed reports earlier Tuesday by CBS Miami and The New York Times, citing unnamed sources, that the facility in Big Cypress National Preserve will close and detainees will be moved out by the start of June. The reports said officials at Alligator Alcatraz told vendors Tuesday afternoon.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Weston Democrat, representing Florida’s 25th district, who visited the detention center in April, issued a statement Tuesday.
“The Everglades internment camp’s closure is long overdue,” she wrote. “This monument to cruelty, waste and environmental and tribal lands abuse should have never been built.”
At a May 7 press conference in Lakeland, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the facility “served a good purpose.”DeSantis didn’t confirm a report by The New York Times that discussions about a possible closure between him and President Donald Trump’s administration were in the preliminary stages.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the same day that it was not seeking immediate closure of the site. The Times story quotes unnamed officials at the federal and state levels.
DHS hasn’t “said they want to wind it down,” DeSantis said. “This was always designed to be temporary.”
Is Alligator Alcatraz’s closure imminent?
Eskamani led a group of Democratic state lawmakers who tried to inspect the detention center in July 2025, two days after President Trump visited and less than 24 hours after detainees started arriving. The group argued Florida state law grants elected officials access to inspect state-operated facilities without approval. A judge in January ruled that laws about access to state prisons and local jails do not apply to the Everglades facility.
She declined to name the member of Congress who shared information about Alligator Alcatraz.
An email from the Naples Daily News to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which operates Alligator Alcatraz, received no response Tuesday evening.
After hours emails and calls to Sens. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat and Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, weren’t immediately returned. The pair in April started an investigation into claims of punishment and torture at Alligator Alcatraz via a cage-like confinement space called “the box”. Durbin is Senate Minority Whip and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
An email to a press spokesman for Florida’s U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican, received no response Tuesday night.
Wasserman Shultz, environmentalists and legal groups helping families of detainees cheered what seemed to be news of Alligator Alcatraz’s imminent closure.
After her unannounced inspection visit April 9, Wasserman Shultz called the situation inside “disturbing,” and said, “Everything about this screams inhumane and unnecessary. And the cruelty is the point.”
In her statement Tuesday, she wrote:
At my surprise oversight inspection last month, I saw atrocious conditions that Florida taxpayers were forced to spend over $1 million a day on, just to cram people with no criminal history into cages and trample our sensitive Everglades. This camp isn’t closing because ICE leaders found a conscience. It’s closing because the Trump Administration still refuses to pay back Florida taxpayers more than $1 billion in tax dollars they basically lit on fire. I’m proud to have fought it at every turn, in Congress, in court, and alongside environmental advocates, Miccosukee tribal leaders, human rights defenders, and ordinary Floridians who rejected this abomination.But this fight isn’t done. Democrats will investigate this atrocity and demand accountability. We will keep fighting for reforms to stop ICE brutality and let law-abiding people live their lives.
Documents obtained by the Naples Daily News in March paint a picture of spending on Alligator Alcatraz to the tune of $1 million a day. Grant correspondence between FDEM and the Federal Emergency Management Agency about costs and reimbursement included details about number of detainees and costs to feed, clothe and offer medical care and transportation. In its FEMA grant application dated Aug. 3, 2025, Florida originally requested $1.5 billion. FDEM later amended the request to $608.4 million.
Whether the federal government has paid any grant money to Florida is unclear.
“A stain on our nation” – Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity
“When Alligator Alcatraz closes it will be the most profound victory for democracy by a popular movement of human rights defenders since the dark days of the Trump Administration began,” wrote The Workers Circle of America in a press release Tuesday night. The Workers Circle, a national secular Jewish social justice group, has organized vigils outside Alligator Alcatraz every Sunday since Aug. 3.
“It’s being reported that the detention center’s closure was announced to vendors at the facility today. If state and federal officials follow through, it would end a nearly year-long run in which the facility was used to detain people as part of the Trump administration’s immigration purge,” wrote Friends of the Everglades, Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice and Paul Schwiep, Coffey Burlington in a press release Tuesday.
The conservation groups and the Miccosukee Tribe sued to stop the project in June 2025. An appeals court in April ruled 2-1 that Alligator Alcatraz can remain open without federal environmental reviews.
“Alligator Alcatraz is a stain on our nation and a blight on the Everglades, and I look forward to watching this depraved facility bite the dust,” said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’re not going to let Florida and the Trump administration off the hook for the irreparable harm they’ve done to Big Cypress and the critically endangered creatures who live there. Now it’s time to push for full restoration and protection of this site so a travesty like this never happens again.”
The groups and The Workers Circle will continue to protest and fight against the facility, they said.
The vigils won’t stop with the news, Damico said. “I will be down this Sunday. … we’ve got to keep going until we finish the job!”
With reporting by Mickenzie Hannon.Do you have an opinion about this topic? Write a letter to the editor and send it to letters@naplesnews.com and/or mailbag@news-press.com. Keep it to 250 words or fewer and include your contact info. Have more to say: Send a guest column of no more than 600 words.
J. Kyle Foster is a senior growth & development reporter for The News-Press & Naples Daily News. Reach her by emailing jfoster1@usatodayco.com.
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This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Alligator Alcatraz detention center rumored to close in June
Reporting by J. Kyle Foster, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Naples Daily News
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