A group of Florida Democratic lawmakers said Thursday that they were denied access to the new “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention facility due to “safety concerns.”
The denied legislative oversight visit came less than one day after the first batch of illegal immigrants arrived at the Everglades facility. The visit was unannounced.
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The Democratic lawmakers at the facility were Florida state Sens. Shevrin Jones and Carlos Guillermo Smith, as well as Florida state Reps. Anna Eskamani, Angie Nixon, and Michele Rayner.
Some of the lawmakers provided statements decrying their denied entry.
“Florida law gives legislators the authority to make unannounced visits to state-run facilities — to inspect conditions and check on the wellbeing of the people inside. I’ve served in the Legislature for 13 years, and this has never happened,” Jones posted on social media.
The Democratic state leaders cited safety concerns as their primary reason for visiting the detention facility, which is still being constructed as hundreds of illegal immigrants arrive.
“We asked the question, ‘If it’s unsafe for us, how is it safe for anybody else?'” Rayner told journalist Forrest Saunders.
On the question of whether the lawmakers had the authority to visit the site, Saunders reported they were “told their statutory grant is for [Florida Department of Corrections] institutions, county detention facilities, and [Florida Department of Juvenile Justice] facilities. ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is kind of something else, entirely.”
Smith said he wanted to “demand answers” and “accountability” from Florida and the Trump administration over the “detention camp,” which will cost about $450 million per year to operate. “The corrupt pay-to-play contracts to GOP donors must be exposed,” Smith wrote.
The “Alligator Alcatraz” facility will house 3,000 migrants but has enough beds for 5,000 detainees, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. In partnership with the Department of Homeland Security, the Florida Division of Emergency Management constructed the site in eight days. Roughly 1,000 staff members manage it, and 20,000 feet of barbed wire surround it.
The Washington Examiner contacted DHS and the Florida Division of Emergency Management for comment.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who proposed the “Alligator Alcatraz” idea, jokingly responded ahead of the lawmakers’ visit.
“I hope they have an airboat,” Uthmeier said Thursday morning, referring to the site’s location in the middle of a Miami swamp.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), and other Republican officials attended the detention facility’s grand opening. Trump boasted its location as ideal for preventing detainees from escaping.
“It’s known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ which is very appropriate, because I look outside and it’s not a place I want to go,” Trump said during a visit to the site in Ochopee, Florida, on Tuesday afternoon. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swamp land, and the only way out is really deportation.”
The facility is already drawing legal pushback, with environmental groups suing the Trump administration and Florida to delay its construction.
DOJ MOVES TO BLOCK ECO GROUPS FROM HALTING CONSTRUCTION OF ‘ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ’
On Thursday, the Department of Justice filed a motion to prevent construction delays.
“The Department of Justice has defended President Trump’s immigration agenda in court since day one,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement, “and we are proud to protect ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ from baseless, politically motivated legal schemes.”