The monstrous, recently constructed immigrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades, flippantly dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” literally took on water within a day of President Trump visiting the camp Tuesday to commemorate its planned Wednesday opening.
Florida officials have assured the public that the facility, which will cost an estimated $450 million per year to operate, was built to withstand a Category 2 hurricane (though the Naples Daily News notes that winds of recent hurricanes in the area have significantly exceeded Category 2 levels).
A report by the Miami Herald further casts into doubt official claims about the facility’s durability. According to the Herald, “a garden-variety South Florida summer rainstorm” on Tuesday afternoon—of about an inch-and-a-half of rain—caused flooding in the facility.
The Herald reports: “Rainfall seeped through the edges of the facility as the roofs and walls trembled. Drips leaked from above a door frame. The water spread under poles hoisting the Florida and U.S. flags.”
A good lil storm passed over us here at ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’Here’s what it looks & sounds like inside one of these tents.The state says the sites here are rated to withstand a category two hurricane (~120mph winds). pic.twitter.com/6SyY1hAvkK
— Jason Delgado (@JasonDelgadoX) July 1, 2025
On Wednesday, the Florida Division of Emergency Management told the Herald that contractors, overnight, “went back and tightened any seams at the base of the structures that allowed water intrusion during the heavy storm,” claiming flooding had been “minimal.”
The news validates growing concerns about the condition of the facility, which was jury-rigged on a site known to be prone to flooding.
On Wednesday, two dozen House Democrats, led by Representatives Janelle Bynum of Oregon and Maxwell Frost of Florida, railed against the “makeshift unsafe, unsanitary, overly crowded, and environmentally destructive” facility in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Todd Lyons.
“Detainees will be kept in tents with inadequate sanitation facilities and will face unbearable living conditions, including exposure to deadly pathogens, constant threats from unpredictable flooding and extreme weather events, and daily temperatures averaging 90 degrees, with a heat index often over 100 degrees Fahrenheit,” the lawmakers wrote.
The site, the letter continues, is “known as being one of the most dangerous and inhospitable environments in the United States. This remote swamp is notorious for oppressive heat, relentless humidity, severe storms, and perilous terrain infested with venomous snakes, disease-carrying insects, and large predatory wildlife, including alligators and crocodiles.”
The Trump administration and MAGA more broadly, meanwhile, have relished the cruelty of the facility—which journalist Andrea Prizer, who authored a book on the history of concentration camps, deemed a concentration camp. For example, Trump on Tuesday joked to reporters that detainees will have to be taught to run in a zigzag in order to evade alligators.
The assessment from House Democrats, borne out by reports that the facility apparently had trouble withstanding a commonplace rain shower, continues: “The deliberate placement of vulnerable immigrants into such a hostile and lethal environment is morally reprehensible, inherently cruel, and starkly violates basic humanitarian standards.”
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