Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has announced plans to help build a migrant detention center in the middle of Florida’s Everglades — protected not by fences or guards, but by alligators and pythons.
In a post on X Monday night, Noem said her department is working at “turbo speed” to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation push. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed to deliver cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens,” she wrote. “We will expand facilities and bed space in just days.”
The detention center, made up mostly of tents on a remote airfield, is the idea of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. According to him, the surrounding swamp — full of deadly wildlife — makes it a cheap security solution.
The plan echoes Trump’s earlier ideas from his first term, when he floated the idea of a border moat filled with “snakes and alligators” to stop migrants. Now, that concept is becoming real.
“These new facilities will in large part be funded by [the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA)] Shelter and Services program,” Noem said, “which the Biden administration used as a piggy bank to spend hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to house illegal aliens.”
But FEMA’s disaster fund was not originally created for immigration enforcement. Under Biden, FEMA paid cities like New York to temporarily shelter immigrants, but that came from a specific fund passed by Congress. Still, Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed that disaster aid was being “stolen” to support undocumented migrants.
Trump himself has a history of shifting money from disaster relief. In 2019, he took $271 million from Department of Homeland Security programs — including $155 million from FEMA — to fund more beds in migrant detention centers.
Now back in office, Trump is cutting even deeper. His administration has started scaling back FEMA altogether, even as hurricanes and floods continue to pound the U.S. each year. His explanation? He wants “to give out less money” and reduce what he calls “wasteful” federal spending.
Critics say the new Everglades facility — already dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” — shows how far the Trump administration is willing to go to crack down on immigration, even if it means diverting funds meant for disaster victims and using deadly animals as jailers.
