CBS News Miami investigates the cost of Alligator Alcatraz after its shutdown
On Thursday, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the closing of Alligator Alcatraz, the highly controversial immigration detention center that was the subject of numerous lawsuits as well as allegations of abuse.
"Alligator Alcatraz fulfilled the role that it was designed to serve," DeSantis said. "Today it now has zero detainees. It has helped remove many, many dangerous people from the street and get them out of not only the state of Florida, but the United States of America."
DeSantis said he was proud of what they had accomplished.
"We stood this up," he said. "We surged critical resources. We built critical infrastructure. We were able to manage very complex operations, and we were able to execute the mission when called upon efficiently."
But how efficient was it?
Open for less than a year, Alligator Alcatraz will likely turn out to be the single most expensive immigration detention center in the history of the United States.
A review of financial records by CBS News Miami found it cost taxpayers twenty times more to house a prisoner at Alligator Alcatraz than at most other detention centers around the country.
Typically, when ICE takes a person into custody, they either transfer them to a facility that they already operate – like the Krome Detention Center – or, as is often the case, they transfer them to an existing jail or private prison under a contract ICE has with those entities. Those contracts establish fixed rates – known as bed rates – for how much the federal government will pay the jail or prison.
According to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, in 2024, the estimated average cost that ICE would pay a jail or a prison was about $165 a day per detainee.
But according to a financial analysis by CBS Miami, the cost to keep a detainee at Alligator Alcatraz was $3,571 a day, per detainee.
"That's a shocking number, provided that number is accurate, that is an absolutely astounding bed rate," said John Sandweg, who was the former Acting ICE director under President Obama. "This idea of a $3,500 bed rate for a facility that is not convenient, it doesn't help ICE achieve its mission -- that's really shocking to me. I mean, that makes you really wonder about who's safeguarding the taxpayer money here."
The total cost for the facility is now estimated to be $1.2 billion.
How CBS Miami arrived at that figure
On Thursday, DeSantis said nearly 21,000 detainees were processed through the detention camp. And according to ICE's own records, the average length of stay for a detainee at Alligator Alcatraz was 16 days.
Therefore, when you have 21,000 detainees staying for an average of 16 days, that is a total of 336,000 inmate days.
Divide $1.2 billion by 336,000, and you get $3,571 – meaning when it is all said and done, taxpayers will have spent more than $3,500 per inmate for each day they were at Alligator Alcatraz.
Another way to look at the numbers: Alligator Alcatraz was open for 350 days, with the first detainee arriving on July 2, 2025, and the last detainee leaving on June 17, 2026. That means the average daily cost for Alligator Alcatraz was $3.4 million.
"Look, this isn't about whether you're soft on immigration or tough on immigration," Sandweg said. "ICE detention is rough. What I'm saying is there's available much, much cheaper existing jails; old, closed prisons and private contractors where ICE can get those beds, house the same people in route to deportation, and do it in a way that's more convenient and frankly safer for ICE agents themselves. And do it at a rate that is much, much, much cheaper for the taxpayer."
How did this happen?
Alligator Alcatraz was first suggested by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who described it as an "efficient, low-cost opportunity" to build a detention center in the middle of the Everglades.
"You don't need to invest much in the perimeter," Uthmeier said in a social media video he posted on June 19, 2025. "People get out, there's not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide."
The video showed Uthmeier walking the grounds of the little-used airport, formerly known as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport. Accompanied by two burly law enforcement officers and with a military-style helicopter in the background, Uthmeier declared this was the perfect spot for a detention center.
"Alligator Alcatraz," Uthmeier repeated. "We're ready to go."
The idea immediately took off. Conservative politicians and many in the media became fixated on both the name and the prospect of escaping detainees being devoured by Florida gators and snakes. And no one found the joke more amusing than President Trump.
"Snakes are fast, but alligators, we're going to teach [the detainees] how to run away from an alligator," he said with a laugh, while demonstrating a zig-zagging motion with his hands. "OK, if they escape prison, how to run away: don't run in a straight line like this, run like this."
Using no-bid contracts, Governor DeSantis built the facility in eight days. He boasted it was large enough to house up to a thousand detainees at a time.
On July 1, 2025, the day before it officially opened, President Trump, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Governor DeSantis toured the site, with all three arguing that Alligator Alcatraz could become a model for other states to emulate.
"Is this a model going forward?" a reporter asked President Trump, with both DeSantis and Noem smiling and nodding yes next to the President.
"It can be," Trump said. "I mean, you don't always have land so beautiful and so secure. We have a lot of bodyguards and a lot of cops that are in the form of alligators. You don't have to pay them so much, but I wouldn't want to run through the Everglades for long. It will keep people where they're supposed to be."
The Republican Party of Florida sold Alligator Alcatraz merchandise on their website while critics argued there was a callousness to the way the President and others joked about the harsh conditions surrounding the site, suggesting the entire affair was more of a publicity stunt than an effort at good public or fiscal policy.
So why was Alligator Alcatraz so expensive?
The answer isn't that hard to understand. While the President and the Governor found it amusing to have a detention center in the middle of the Everglades, it also made it incredibly expensive.
There was no infrastructure. Every day, trucks transported water to the site – both for drinking and showering. Officials also had to truck out all the sewage and waste accumulated every day because there was no sewer or septic system.
There were also no electrical lines that could handle a facility of its size. The entire site needed to run on scores of generators to keep the lights and air conditioning going, with the fuel for those generators also needing to be delivered by truck every day.
And because it was in the middle of the Big Cypress National Preserve, the state had to take additional precautions to encircle the site with filters and other measures so that when it rained, there was no runoff into the neighboring wetlands. And that entire system needed to be monitored by environmental engineers with filters and screens regularly needing to be replaced.
Then, of course, there was the cost of food, both for the detainees and the staff, many of whom lived on the site in trailers. There were also medical services, fencing, beds, tents, and staff.
The single largest contract at Alligator Alcatraz was with a company called Doodie Calls. They built and managed the system of toilets, hauling out the human waste. They also installed portable showers for the detainees and the staff, as well as managing the laundry services.
Doodie Calls' contract alone was for more than $200 million.
Sandweg said the entire affair needs to be investigated.
"I would love to see the [Inspector General] or somebody neutral conduct an inquiry into how this came about and how the taxpayers spent over a billion dollars for a facility that I can tell you, just from my years of working with ICE and working at ICE, the agency probably didn't like and didn't want," he said.
Congressional Democrats have said that if they win the House in November, there will be Congressional hearings on the cost as well.
Uthmeier, the Florida Attorney General, refused to stop and answer questions about Alligator Alcatraz when he was approached by a CBS Miami reporter on Saturday at the Republican Party of Florida's annual gathering.
During his press conference announcing its closure, DeSantis defended the cost and argued that if the state had not built Alligator Alcatraz, those 21,000 individuals captured by ICE and local police would have been released.
"Had this facility not existed, there would not have been a place to put these people while they were awaiting deportation," DeSantis said. "They would have been put back on the street. That would have harmed Floridians. I've met Angel Moms, I've met a lot of Angel Moms, and the number of them that I've met have lost a loved one at the hands of an illegal alien that had already been deported and came back or was out pending some type of charges. You can't put a price tag on that."
Sandweg, the former ICE director, said that claim is ridiculous.
"First of all, ICE's actual detention capacity is very limited," he explained. "ICE relies heavily on contract facilities, but also state and local facilities. So many of the challenges ICE faced historically in terms of ramping up detention were not necessarily related to the lack of available beds, but rather the money to pay for those beds. Now, to be fair, ICE does, because the detention goals of this administration are so great, they do want to expand out their detention capacity. But a lot of that expansion has been done simply by letting contracts to rent space in existing facilities."
On Thursday, DeSantis read from a list of names of fewer than a dozen individuals who had passed through Alligator Alcatraz and were accused or convicted of horrendous crimes, including sexual assault and murder.
CBS Miami asked the Governor's Office to provide the complete list of names he was citing. The office did not respond to the request.
There is also no evidence that everyone housed at Alligator Alcatraz was, as President Trump used to say, "the worst of the worst."
Reporting by the Miami Herald and other news organizations found the majority of those taken to Alligator Alcatraz had no criminal record or had minor arrests for traffic violations and other non-violent offenses.
As Alligator Alcatraz is broken down in the coming days, there is still a concern about who is going to pay for it. DeSantis promised that all the costs would be paid by the federal government. Currently, however, it is Florida taxpayers who are on the hook for the $1.2 billion.
A year after opening the camp, the state has only received $58 million in reimbursements, which is less than 5% of what they are owed.
On Thursday, standing alongside border czar Tom Homan, DeSantis said he is confident the federal government will eventually come through.
"We will get it," DeSantis said on Thursday. "I mean, I was there with Tom and the President and the President said, `Get Florida their money,' and Tom's going to make sure it's part of it. I think it's just bureaucracy."