SANDERSON — Without directly praising President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis Monday at Florida’s “Deportation Depot” condemned the “destructive” Nicolás Maduro government days after U.S. military forces captured him.
It was the Florida governor’s first public comments on Maduro’s seizure, which happened late Saturday night at his Caracas compound.
DeSantis, often hyperactive on social media, was one of the few state leaders who’d stayed quiet in the first days following the operation — even though the Sunshine State boasts the largest Venezuelan community in the nation.
On Monday, he broke his silence.
“We’ve seen the country of Venezuela suffering under the yoke of Marxist ideology, first with Hugo Chávez and then with Nicolás Maduro,” DeSantis said, speaking alongside members of the Florida Cabinet at the entrance to the detention facility his administration has been calling “Deportation Depot” to announce more than 10,000 arrests of undocumented migrants.
“You will be hard pressed to find a reign as destructive as the Chávez-Maduro reign has been; taking a country that has been prosperous with an abundance of resources and basically destroying it and making it so that it’s miserable, repressed, and now one of the poorest countries,” he added.
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Late Saturday night, American forces captured Maduro and his wife and brought them to New York. Both were arraigned in federal court on drug trafficking charges.
Doral in South Florida is home to the largest Venezuelan community in the United States. More than 34,000 of its 81,000 residents are of Venezuelan descent.
What was the conference about?
DeSantis called the news conference to celebrate the continuance of Operation Tidal Wave, a detention round-up launched in late April that initially captured more than 1,000 undocumented migrants. Of the updated total as of Monday, DeSantis said, 63% had past criminal charges.
Built at the defunct Baker Correctional Institution in Sanderson — midway between Gainesville and Jacksonville — the state opened “Deportation Depot” mid-September to assist in mass detentions and deportations. It can accommodate 1,310 beds and is expected to hold as many as 2,000 people in a temporary capacity.
It’s been the launch point for 93 deportation flights containing 2,926 people since the center’s opening, DeSantis said.
The North Florida facility came two months after President Donald Trump joined Florida Republicans in opening “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Everglades, the nation’s first state-run detention center.
The state has also been planning for months to open a third center called the “Panhandle Pokey,” but DeSantis said Florida officials are “still waiting” for the Department of Homeland Security to approve it.
He added that Florida may open a fourth detention center in southern Florida. The governor said he’s looking at a number of options but wants to make sure it would “make sense” both in terms of finances and capacity.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security awarded Florida in September a $608 million reimbursement grant for costs associated with the detention and deportation of migrants. This came months after Florida became the first — and only — state to require all 67 counties to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The anti-undocumented immigration sentiment sweeping Florida politics was both inspired by and mirrored in the White House after Trump took office in January 2025. Trump, beginning his second term, emphasized sealing the southern border as a top priority for his administration and removing migrants in the country without official permission.
Florida Republicans heartily agreed. The GOP-dominated Legislature passed a comprehensive law in early 2025 — weeks after Trump’s inauguration — creating state-level penalties for illegally entering Florida, mandating the death penalty for noncitizens who commit capital crimes, and nixing in-state tuition for undocumented college students.
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