By Eve Samples, Friends of the Everglades
Will the last person leaving “Alligator Alcatraz” please turn out the lights?
Let velvet darkness return to this rare “International Dark Sky” park, revealing the beauty of the Milky Way again. Let Florida panthers resume roaming by night in one of the last swaths of wilderness left to them. Let the shriek of generators be replaced by the soft sonar clicks of endangered bats as they feed at dusk on mosquitoes aplenty.
Above all, let a grim chapter in Everglades history end. This political stunt of a South Florida immigration detention center by Gov. Ron DeSantis, at the behest of President Donald Trump‘s administration, has been a failure by every measure.
Our governments failed the Everglades and failed taxpayers ‒ at an estimated cost of $1.2 million a day. The only acceptable remedy is full remediation of the damage. Let’s go back to protecting the world’s only Everglades.
Environmental protection laws can’t be ignored
Friends of the Everglades, the 57-year-old conservation nonprofit I lead, has never wavered from that goal. We and our partners, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida, filed a federal lawsuit in June 2025. We wanted to pause construction of the immigrant detention camp 40 miles west of Miami, on a little-used training airstrip encircled by Big Cypress National Preserve.
Our lawsuit insists on environmental law and order ‒ specifically, enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act. That bedrock law requires the federal government to consider the consequences of its actions and conduct thorough environmental studies before big federally supported changes take place on protected landscapes.
No such study was done for Alligator Alcatraz. The state, in partnership with the federal government, built the camp quickly and secretively and opened it in July.
We won the first round of our legal battle, when a federal judge halted new construction, but a split panel of appellate judges allowed operations to resume while our broader case advances.
The camp is still open, detaining about 650 people as of late May, amid reports that it will shut down in June.
If not for our courtroom testimony, the public would not know the risk posed by some 20 acres of new pavement laid amid Everglades wetlands that surround Alligator Alcatraz. They would not know that stadium-style lights visible 15 miles away have obliterated about 2,000 acres of endangered Florida panther habitat, driving the big cats from their limited nocturnal hunting grounds.
Detaining immigrants in swampland isn’t cheap
When the state tried to hide how taxpayer dollars were being spent, the public records lawsuit we brought in state court in October helped reveal the facts. Trucking food, water, equipment and fuel in ‒ and trucking trash and sewage out of one of the most remote ecosystems in the eastern United States ‒ Florida officials proposed to pay private contractors about $1 billion.
That is the definition of a boondoggle.
Floridians are so opposed to using state emergency management funds for a detention camp, the state legislature recently approved a proposal limiting the governor’s unchecked access to that money. “Alligator Alcatraz,” once a political slogan, is now a liability.
Secrecy and sleight of hand have been the hallmarks of Alligator Alcatraz’s short life, but signs point to an imminent ending. News stories have recently reported that the state and federal governments plan to close the camp. Vendors have been told the detainees will be moved out in early June and the facility will be dismantled. Detainee transfers are accelerating.
After failing for months to reimburse Florida’s expenses, Washington has cued up a $58.3 million first payment. That would undercut the state’s argument that the camp is not federally backed so federal law doesn’t apply.
Friends of the Everglades was founded in 1969 by author and activist Marjory Stoneman Douglas to protect this same land from harmful development. Douglas fought for the Everglades nearly until her death at age 108.
“Never give up,” she advised.
We won’t, until Alligator Alcatraz is shut down.
Everglades damage must be repaired
Once the appeals court order allows our case to resume, we’re prepared to return to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams’ courtroom with new evidence and strong claims. We have other legal options, and we are not afraid to use them.
We insist on full remediation of the land that the state has treated with contempt ‒ land sacred to the Miccosukee people and important to fishers, hunters, night-sky watchers and nature lovers nationwide.
We have the support of the American people to protect this place. And it’s in the interest of Congress, which in 2024 authorized a $2 billion state-federal partnership to restore the western Everglades, including the site where Alligator Alcatraz now threatens the landscape.
We will keep fighting until the damage done in darkness is brought into the light, the harms to the ecosystem are undone and restoration of the world’s only Everglades is back on track.
Eve Samples is the executive director of Friends of the Everglades, a nonprofit founded in 1969 by Marjory Stoneman Douglas to preserve, protect and restore the Everglades. This opinion piece was previously published by the Palm Beach Post and other media partners of The Invading Sea. Banner photo: A sign at the entrance to Alligator Alcatraz (iStock image).
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