NBC Nightly News has fully jumped into the immigration wars, and taken a side. In a report more in place at corporate partner Telemundo, NBC is now whining over a new migrant detention facility set to open in Florida, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” due to its proximity to the Everglades and its variety of reptilian apex predators.
Here is the report in its entirety, as aired on NBC Nightly News on Tuesday, June 24th, 2025 (click “expand” to view transcript):
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS
6/24/25
6:41 PM
TOM LLAMAS: Now to a new migrant detention camp in the Florida Everglades. Officials there are calling it Alligator Alcatraz, suggesting the swamp's wildlife will prevent migrants from escaping. Here’s Gabe Gutierrez.
GABE GUTIERREZ: Tonight construction is underway, deep in the Florida Everglades on a massive migrant detention camp that state officials are calling Alligator Alcatraz. Starting next month, 5,000 migrants will be housed in trailers and heavy duty tents at this remote abandoned airfield.
JAMES UTHMEIER: I call it Alligator Alcatraz.
GUTIERREZ: In a promotional video set to music, Florida's attorney general lays out what he considered a deterrent for any potential escapees.
JAMES UTHMEIER: People get out, there's not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons.
GUTIERREZ: But some local officials warn the environmental impact could be devastating.
DANIELLA LEVINE CAVA:: We have environmental and physical stewardship and safety concerns.
GUTIERREZ: The Trump administration had said it wants to get up to 100,000 beds at detention centers across the country to facilitate mass deportations.
DONALD TRUMP: A lot of bad people were let into our country. We’re getting them out and we’re getting them out fast.
GUTIERREZ: The Department of Homeland Security says the new facility will cost about $450 million a year, and will be reimbursed in large part by a FEMA program previously used to shelter migrants in places like this hotel in New York City.
Do you think that this is a good idea for your home state?
GREG STEUBE: Well, I 100% support the president's deportation efforts. It's the president's priority to get those individuals out of our country.
GUTIERREZ: But immigrant advocates argue the money has not been set aside by Congress, and…
JESSE FRANZBLAU: The biggest concern is the- is the grave inhumanity that seems to be at stake in terms of sending people to incredibly inhumane, brutal conditions.
GUTIERREZ: An administration official tells NBC news that ICE currently has nearly 60,000 detainees in custody. A record. Tom.
LLAMAS: All right. Gabe Gutierrez, we thank you.
So there is this remote abandoned airfield in the Everglades, with room for the intake of many illegal aliens. There are a great many illegal aliens in the country to begin with, tens of millions which were allowed to enter into the country during the previous administration- a fact not mentioned in the report.
The entire tone of the report is set so as to trigger outrage over the fact that some potentially dangerous aliens will be housed in a facility that might prove difficult to escape, and in accommodations not comparable with the four-star Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. These are different times that all for different solutions.
There is partisan parity in the soundbites used for the report. President Donald Trump and Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava (D) each got a sentence or so. GOP Congressman Greg Steube and Jesse Franzblau of the National Immigrant Justice Center each got in an extended soundbite.
Nonetheless, the overall frame is oppositional to the concept of Alligator Alcatraz. The idea that illegal immigrants should be detained until deportation in any place other than a ritzy hotel is a bridge too far for NBC.