Nearly 2,000 migrants detained at a remote ICE facility deep in the Florida Everglades have effectively vanished from public tracking systems — sparking outrage, fear, and growing comparisons to secretive “black sites” typically associated with war zones, not U.S. soil.
The tent city, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by immigrant advocates, has become a symbol of unchecked detention and government secrecy. Operated by the state of Florida and supported with federal emergency funds, the facility has now drawn national scrutiny after the Miami Herald reported that the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at the site during July could not be determined.
The Herald’s journalists obtained two internal detainee rosters and found that about 800 names weren’t showing up in ICE’s public Online Detainee Locator System. Another 450 detainees were listed without a location — just a message instructing users to “Call ICE for details.”
Despite not having final deportation orders — a legal requirement for removal — many of these men are simply gone. Their families can’t find them. Their lawyers don’t know who to call. And federal and state agencies have offered little explanation.
“Those detained in this detention camp have effectively been administratively disappeared,” said the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) in a statement on Friday.
A Shadow System of Detention
What makes Alligator Alcatraz particularly alarming is that it’s not a standard ICE facility. The state of Florida operates it, but it houses people in ICE custody — creating a legal gray area that appears to shield the site from traditional oversight.
Shirsho Dasgupta, one of the Herald reporters who broke the story, told Democracy Now! that even immigration attorneys are at a loss:
“They don’t know who to call” to get in contact with their clients.
The facility was thrown together in a matter of days this summer and sits in the middle of the Everglades, far from legal aid networks or the media. Detainees held there often have no criminal charges, no warrants, and no way to contact the outside world.
In July, several members of Congress who visited the camp described the conditions as horrific.
FLIC has been trying to track detainees for months. They say the problem isn’t new — and that the Herald’s report simply confirmed what they’ve long feared.
“Since this depraved torture camp funded with state FEMA funds reopened,” said Tessa Petit, FLIC’s executive director,
“we have been unable to locate the fathers, brothers, friends, and sons that are caged there without due process in the ICE locator. Hospitalizations for severe medical incidents, which include cardiac incidents and surgeries, go unreported.”
Deportation Without Hearings
FLIC also says detainees have been deported before their scheduled bond hearings — a serious due process violation. The group claims to have “confirmed data showing Florida is lying when claiming those detained at the Everglades camp had final orders of removal.”
“What we’re seeing at Alligator Alcatraz is basically a new model of immigration detention,” said Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst at FLIC.
“A state-run facility operating as an extrajudicial black site, completely outside of the previous models of immigration detention in this country. It’s making what was already a terrible system somehow even worse.”
Operations at the camp were briefly halted in August when a federal district judge ruled against it on environmental grounds. But just two weeks later, a federal appeals court stayed that ruling — allowing the site to reopen.
Florida has requested reimbursement from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, which was designed to support migrants released from ICE custody — not to fund hidden detention facilities. Yet FEMA funds are helping keep Alligator Alcatraz running.
And despite repeated inquiries, the state has refused to confirm how many people are currently being held at the site.
A System With No Accountability
The core issue isn’t just overcrowding or bureaucratic errors — it’s the total breakdown of transparency. The ICE Online Detainee Locator System is supposed to track anyone in ICE custody. That system now seems to be falling apart when it comes to this facility.
Immigrant rights groups say Alligator Alcatraz is operating like a black site, with no accountability, no oversight, and no clear legal justification for its practices.
People are being detained, moved, deported — or simply disappearing — with no paper trail and no answers.
And for the families left behind, the silence is devastating.
