The fate of the Everglades immigrant detention center, Alligator Alcatraz, is up in the air.
The New York Times reported Thursday that Florida officials are in preliminary conversations with the Trump administration to shut down the facility, after the Department of Homeland Security concluded the center is too expensive to operate.
The Everglades Detention Center opened last July in the Big Cypress National Preserve, about 50 miles west of Miami, and has already cost Florida taxpayers at least $640 million. Gov. Ron DeSantis has repeatedly claimed taxpayers would be reimbursed by the federal government but that has yet to happen.
READ MORE: Federal appeals court keeps 'Alligator Alcatraz' open, rejects need for federal environmental review
The Times, citing sources in the federal government and close to the DeSantis administration, reported that officials consider the facility "ineffective" — despite DeSantis’ claims of the center’s success.
Miami-Dade Mayor Danielle Levine Cava, posting on X, said the closing of the immigration detention center "is long overdue."
"For months, thousands have been detained there in inhumane conditions without meaningful due process–while wasting millions of taxpayer dollars," she wrote. "It is time for dignity & accountability to be restored."
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Today’s news that Alligator Alcatraz may finally be shut down is long overdue. For months, thousands have been detained there in inhumane conditions without meaningful due process–while wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. It is time for dignity & accountability to be restored. https://t.co/doRB6SuTf6
— Daniella Levine Cava (@MayorDaniella) May 7, 2026
Following an unannounced visit last month, Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, said that nearly 1,500 detainees are housed under "inhumane" conditions.
She said the detainees are being held in cages and that the dorm area was humid, smelled of urine and had limited toilets. Federal immigration authorities refused to answer her questions about the facility's treatment of detainees, she added.
Wasserman Schultz noted that about 65% of those held do not have a criminal history, with only 27% categorized as ‘high threat’ by ICE officials.
Lots of lawsuits
The news of a potential closure comes less than a month after the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the center may continue operating, upholding its earlier decision to block a judge's order for the facility to wind down operations because it didn't comply with federal environmental law.
That came in a lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Miccosukee Tribe, alleging that federal and state agencies didn't follow federal law requiring an environmental review for the detention center in the middle of sensitive wetlands.
“This destructive detention camp in the middle of the Everglades should have never been built, but I’m glad it may finally shut down. Until it does, we’re going to fight on in district court with everything we’ve got,” said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement Thursday. “This destructive and pointless project has harmed some of Florida’s most vulnerable plants and animals and upended the lives of too many people.
The immigration detention center in the Everglades has been the subject of two other separate lawsuits filed in federal court since its opening last July.
In another lawsuit, a detainee said Florida agencies and private contractors hired by the state had no authority to operate the center under federal law. The challenge ended after the immigrant detainee who filed the lawsuit agreed to be removed from the United States.
In the third lawsuit, a federal judge in Fort Myers, Florida, recently ruled the Everglades facility must provide detainees there with better access to their attorneys, as well as confidential, unmonitored and unrecorded outgoing legal calls.
