DHS secretary praises Florida’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ plan as agency expands immigration detention

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — The Homeland Security secretary is praising Florida for coming forward with an idea that’s been dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” because it would house immigration detainees in a facility being built in a Florida swamp.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the department has been looking to expand immigration detention capacity, and she has been reviewing contracts Immigration and Customs Enforcement has with various vendors for detention beds.

“The ones with some of the vendors that we had, I felt were way too expensive, and that those vendors were not giving us fair prices and so I went directly to states and to ask them if they could do a better job providing this service,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press as her Latin America trip wound down late Thursday.

She said the department has been reaching out to states or companies who aren’t regular ICE contractors to see whether they’re able to provide the detention space the department needs at a better price.

“We really are looking for people that want to help drive down the cost but still provide a very high level of detention facility,” she said.

Noem said Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier brought this particular idea to the department.

“They were willing to build it and do it much quicker than what some of the other vendors were. And it was a real solution that we’ll be able to utilize if we need to,” she said. Noem said they evaluated the contract and it “made sense.”

As the Trump administration has dramatically ramped up immigration enforcement around the country as part of its mass deportation effort, the number of people in ICE detention has swelled. ICE detention facilities are currently holding more than 56,000 immigrants in June, the most since 2019.

Florida officials have dubbed the facility that they’re building in the remote and ecologically sensitive wetland about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of downtown Miami as “Alligator Alcatraz.” The facility located at an isolated Everglades airfield surrounded by mosquito-, python- and alligator-filled swamplands is just days away from being operational.

The detention facility is the latest effort by Florida to assist in President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

Noem said some of the ICE detention contracts put in place under her predecessor, Alejandro Mayorkas, were for 10-15 years.

“That’s insane to me. If we do our job correctly, we shouldn’t be doing this 15 years from now,” she said.

The detention contracts were among a range of subjects Noem spoke about with the Associated Press during an interview in Guatemala City on the tail end of her four-country tour through Central America. Noem made stops in Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala.

Here are some of the other highlights of the conversation:

Signing security agreements

Noem said that President Trump “encouraged” her to visit countries in Central America that have historically been points of origin for many migrants to the United States and “get more security agreements or to finalize ones” where discussions had already started — and to “get them across the finish line.”

She praised Honduras for being “much more of a partner” than in the past and said that they had signed a safe third country agreement with Honduras, calling it a “big win from this trip.” She said Guatemala on Thursday also agreed to be a safe third country.

The agreements expand the Trump administration’s efforts to provide the U.S. government flexibility in returning migrants not only to their own countries, but also to third countries as it attempts to ramp up deportations.

“We’ve never believed that the United States should be the only option, that the guarantee for a refugee is that they go somewhere to be safe and to be protected from whatever threat they face in their country,” she said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be the United States.”

Noem said those agreements were something the administration has been working on “for months” but they weren’t happening “until we came here.”

“We’ve been putting a lot of pressure on them to finalize those agreements,” she said. “And both of those countries did, which is great.”

Both governments denied having signed safe third-country agreements when asked following Noem’s comments.

Noem had said Thursday that “politically, this is a difficult agreement for their governments to do.”

Both countries have limited resources and many needs making support for asylum-seekers from other countries a tougher sell domestically. There are also the optics of two left-of-center governments appearing to help the Trump administration limit access to U.S. asylum.

Noem also signed an agreement with Guatemala on Thursday that establishes a Joint Security Program under which U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers would work with the Guatemala government to improve border security in Guatemala.

Under the agreement, CBP officers will be stationed at the country’s international airport and possibly other airports in the future to assist the Guatemalan government in identifying travelers who might be involved in terrorism or other crimes or pose a threat to Guatemala by smuggling contraband or currency in or out of the country.

‘America’s strongest partners’

Noem said both Costa Rica and Guatemala want to partner with the United States. “Guatemala and Costa Rica, I feel like, are competing for this a little bit. They both want to be America’s strongest partners,” she said.

Costa Rica specifically wants U.S. help in its efforts to screen every person or package coming into the country, she said.

Noem said Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves isn’t asking the U.S. to pay for the technology or equipment but instead wants help negotiating with private companies to get Costa Rica what it needs.

The partnership is different in Guatemala, though. There, Noem said, the government wants American help in going after drug cartels.

Speaking of her talks with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo, she said he had specific requests during their meeting Thursday designed to help Guatemala target cartels.

“He wants us to help support him in going after them because they’re seeing a big increase in drug usage here in this country,” she said.

She said Panama, which is home to the economically crucial Panama Canal, has been a “priority of this administration.” The country is also a key part of the migration route from South America to the United States. In recent years, hundreds of thousands of migrants have traversed the treacherous Darien Gap connecting Panama and Colombia.

Although that traffic started to fall last year under the Biden administration and dwindled to nothing after Trump took office, Noem said during her time in Panama they discussed how to sustain that drop. But she was critical of Panama when it came to information-sharing: “That country has worked with us, but it hasn’t been our greatest partner I would say as far as sharing information.”