# Alligator Alcatraz Florida's state-built immigration detention camp at the Dade-Collier airstrip in the Everglades — the prototype of the state-partnership detention model. **Opened July 2025; permanently closed June 25, 2026.** Built and run by the State of Florida under [[Ron DeSantis]] with FEMA reimbursement, using contractors including [[Deployed Resources]] (tents/logistics), CDR Maguire (healthcare), GardaWorld, and IRG Global (~$112M); Florida owed ~$603M to ~27 companies. It spawned copycats: Indiana's "Speedway Slammer," Nebraska's "Cornhusker Clink" (opened November 2025), and Louisiana's "Camp 57" at Angola (September 2025). Its closure was announced as a hurricane-season precaution after detainees had already been moved out, and then made permanent — an ending that arrived alongside three federal lawsuits and an environmental closure order that had been stayed on appeal. Cost estimates in circulation run from roughly **$1 billion to $1.2 billion**; DeSantis has claimed 21,000 people were deported through it, a figure sourced to him and not independently audited. > Status: expand further with the environmental litigation timeline, the FEMA funding mechanics, and the copycat camps as separate events if they grow. ## The DHS inspector general report (September 14, 2026) Fifteen months after the camp opened and eleven weeks after it closed, the **DHS Office of Inspector General** published the first federal review of the facility — **OIG-26-22**, which refers to it by its official name, the *Florida Soft-Sided Facility*. The report found the camp failed to meet ICE detention standards in **six categories**: medical care, food service, personal hygiene, recreation, environmental health and safety, and special management units. ### The enclosures The finding that drew the coverage concerns what staff called "calming areas." - Between **July 17, 2025 and January 18, 2026**, **79 detainees** were confined in small metal enclosures, for periods ranging from several minutes to **nearly two hours**. - Each enclosure had roughly **18 square feet** of floor space. Some were outdoors. - Staff told inspectors the enclosures were places where detainees could "reflect on their behavior choices, manage their emotions, reduce stress and practice self-directed behavior," and that people asked to be placed in them. The OIG found **at least one instance** in which they "may have been used as a disciplinary tool." - The OIG called the practice **"unprecedented"** and **"highly unconventional,"** unlike anything its teams had observed in ICE facilities, and wrote that "confining individuals in small metal enclosures for any reason presents significant risks to detainee health and well-being." ### The general population The enclosures were the anomaly; the ordinary conditions were the volume. Detainees spent most of their time in cages affording about **28 square feet of floor space per person — less than half the 75 square feet the standards require.** They were let out less often than required, permitted showers **three times a week**, and had limited access to medical care, counsel, clean water and safe food. > [!warning] The report is not the first account, and may not be the fullest > Gillian Brockell of *The American Prospect* argued that the OIG report "is likely part of a cover-up." Her basis: [[Amnesty International]] had reported eight months earlier — while the camp was still operating — that the outdoor cages were too small for an adult to stand upright, had no awning, that people were **chained** to them, and that time inside could run **longer** than two hours. None of those three findings appears in the OIG's account. > > This page carries both. The OIG report is the official federal record and its factual findings are verified; Brockell's charge that it understates the conditions is an argument, and the Amnesty findings it rests on are that organization's own field research, not a second federal review. The two do not cancel out — the gap between them is itself the thing to watch when the next state-partnership camp is audited. ### Why the timing matters The report landed **after** the facility closed, after the contracts wound down, and after the detainees were dispersed to other facilities — which means it documents a model rather than triggering a remedy. Senators Jon Ossoff and Dick Durbin had opened their own investigation into abuse allegations at the camp while it was running. The enforcement architecture that produced it is mapped at [[Immigration Removal Pipeline]]; DHS is now run by [[Markwayne Mullin]], confirmed March 24, 2026, who did not hold the office during the period the report covers. ## See Also - [[Carceral and Border Security Sector]] - [[Immigration Removal Pipeline]] — where this model sits in the enforcement chain - [[Ron DeSantis]] · [[Deployed Resources]] · [[US Immigration Timeline]] - [[Amnesty International]] — the contemporaneous outside account - [[Markwayne Mullin]] — the current DHS secretary