DHS moves all detainees out of 'Alligator Alcatraz' amid hurricane concerns

DHS moves all detainees out of 'Alligator Alcatraz' amid hurricane concerns

Immigration advocates and lawyers say the transfers are not about safety, noting the facility opened during hurricane season last year

All detainees at "Alligator Alcatraz," a migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades, have been transferred to other facilities, according to the Department of Homeland Security, citing concerns about the hurricane season.

The agency said that all detainees at the facility had been transferred, although it did not specify how many were taken. Some of these detainees will be transferred to "Deportation Depot," another ICE facility in Sanderson, Florida, set up in the northern part of the state.

"As we enter into hurricane season, ICE and the state of Florida have moved illegal aliens from the soft-sided facility. For the safety of the illegal alien detainees, we transferred them to other facilities," a DHS spokesperson told Fox News in a statement.

The hurricane season lasts six months, from June through November. "Alligator Alcatraz" opened on July 3, 2025, just one month after the start of last year's hurricane season, which ended without any storms making landfall in the Sunshine State.

Shortly after the migrant transfer announcement, the National Hurricane Center said that the first tropical storm of this year's hurricane season had formed off the Texas coast.

The controversial state-run detention center has been hailed by President Donald Trump but criticized by lawyers and human rights groups over its harsh conditions and mistreatment of detainees.

"Transferring people out of this cruel facility is an important step, but it does not erase the harm that has already been done," Amy Godshall, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who filed a lawsuit against the state and the federal government over detainees' alleged lack of access to legal representation, said in a statement.

The facility, surrounded by alligator-filled swamps in the Florida Everglades, was constructed by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration to support Trump's plan to mass detain and deport migrants. Trump toured the facility just two days before it was opened last summer. The facility has processed and deported more than 20,000 detainees since its opening.

DeSantis said last month that the detention facility was always meant to be temporary.

Immigration advocates and lawyers said the hurricane season is just an excuse and not the real reason why the detainees have been transferred. They said they noticed an increase in the number of transfers of detainees to other facilities over the past few weeks and that they lost contact with dozens of detainees during these transfers.

"That's a nonsense excuse because they opened in the middle of the worst part of hurricane season last year," said Arianne Betancourt, a community advocate at the non-governmental group The Workers Circle who has spent months connecting detainees with attorneys.