Florida's Attorney General faces new attacks over Alligator Alcatraz and Hope Florida

When President Donald Trump endorsed Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, the President cited the AG's idea of creating a detention center in the middle of the Everglades.

"He is THE MAN behind ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ," the President wrote in a social media post on October 8, 2025.

But as Alligator Alcatraz is now being closed, and the true cost of it is coming into focus, Uthmeier appears to be trying to distance himself from his creation. When DeSantis made the announcement that he was closing the center, Uthmeier was nowhere to be found.

At a recent Republican gathering, he didn't mention Alligator Alcatraz in his speech. And when he was approached by a reporter with questions about Alligator Alcatraz, he refused to speak and was hurried away, surrounded by his security detail.

It is easy to understand why Uthmeier may be reluctant to discuss Alligator Alcatraz.

Open 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 that 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 to 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, whew, that's really shocking to me. I mean, that makes you really wonder about who's safeguarding the taxpayer money here."

Here is how CBS Miami arrived at that figure: The total cost for the facility is now estimated to be $1.2 billion. 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 and the last detainee leaving on June 17th. That means the average daily cost for Alligator Alcatraz was $3.4 million.

Uthermier's opponent calls him "the most corrupt attorney general"

Since Uthmeier refuses to discuss it, CBS News Miami reached out to his opponent in the November election, Democratic candidate Jose Javier Rodriguez, who complained that Uthmeier was focusing on political stunts rather than addressing the needs of Floridians.

"I'm on the campaign trail, and I'm speaking with voters about what the attorney general's office can do to improve your lives," he said. "I'm talking about high costs, insurance, utilities, and I just think about what all this money could have gone to, $1.2 billion. It's astronomical.

"When the facility was first announced, my opponent was all over this. I mean, this was his baby, it is his baby," Rodriguez continued. "This is an embarrassment, a boondoggle, it's an abuse, but it's also extraordinarily wasteful. All of this, just a big political stunt to try to get attention in Washington."

"We have the most corrupt attorney general we've ever had, and this is the cost of corruption when you have somebody who is using the office as a platform for headlines and for attention in DC," he added. "We need an attorney general's office that's focused on the people on the real problems that we have. Obviously, you all have done the math, $1.2 billion. Those are funds that could have gone and should have gone to public safety, hurricane preparedness, other things like that. And as attorney general, I'll focus on the issues that actually matter to us, tackling those things in Tallahassee that make our lives more difficult, insurance and utilities are things specifically that go up only when Tallahassee approves it. The attorney general is not doing anything about that. He's collecting their checks and we need someone to focus on that. And for me, it's the cost of the corruption in Tallahassee that we have, that these kinds of projects are even contemplated."

Uthemeier has also faced backlash due to the Hope Florida scandal 

But there is another topic that Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has avoided talking about:  his role in the scandal surrounding Hope Florida.

In a scathing editorial entitled "James Uthmeier's dark cloud of unreliability," the Sun-Sentinel referred to Hope Florida as "the most serious cloud hovering over" him.

Back in 2024, the DeSantis Administration secretly diverted $10 million from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation. That was taxpayer money that eventually ended up in a political action committee controlled by Uthmeier and used as part of the governor's campaign against the marijuana amendment.

At the time that this money was diverted, Uthmeier was DeSantis's chief of staff.

Last year, a grand jury in Leon County began investigating the affair, calling witnesses and gathering documents. That grand jury probe wrapped up earlier this year, and we've been waiting to see their report.

But the report hasn't been released, leaving some to wonder if some of the people named in the report – like Uthmeier – have secretly petitioned the court to keep it locked away so that no one can ever see it.

When Uthmeier is asked if he requested the report to be hidden from public view, he never directly answers the question; instead, he attacks the press.

"I don't think anybody cares about this topic anymore other than the liberal media," Uthmeier said last April. "What I can tell you is I have not been indicted; I've not been a suspect or a target. I have not been involved in any criminal activity. Nobody did anything wrong here."

He described it as a "nothing burger complaint that's been politically motivated."

As I said at the time, the idea that nobody cares about how $10 million of taxpayer money was used as part of a dark money campaign to influence an election – well, that's amazing in and of itself. Here again, is Uthmeier's opponent in the upcoming election – Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez.

"The attorney general has refused to answer for what he did, the fact is that he can come clean about this," he said. "His role is being kept confidential. He can come forward and explain to us what it is that he did and answer for what he's done He's refused to do."

Rodriguez said Uthmeier should call for the release of the grand jury report.

"If he believes he's not guilty why don't you come and show us," he added.