Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says his predecessor’s flagship “Alligator Alcatraz” detention site is at major risk of natural disasters—but it will be used in case immigration authorities need “to flex.”
Mullin, 48, who replaced Kristi Noem, 54, in March, said the tent-based Everglades facility championed by his predecessor is dangerously exposed to wildfires and hurricanes—yet he insisted the camp will not be permanently shut.
“We have fires that are within 20 miles of it,” Mullin told CBS News in an exclusive extended interview. “Florida is pretty susceptible to hurricanes.”
The former Oklahoma senator and plumbing company boss acknowledged the “vulnerabilities” around the soft-sided jail, but added, “I don’t think we’ve said we’re shutting it down. That’s not been an announcement we’ve made.”
Mullin insisted that DHS still needs the ability “to flex when we have a big influx” of migrants, calling “Alligator Alcatraz” part of the department’s “surge capacity.”
DHS has contingency plans, he said, “in case of a natural emergency such as a wildfire or hurricane, to have to be able to bring it down and pull the individuals out.”
His comments come after reports that the facility—first opened on a remote Florida airstrip in July last year—is being wound down, with state-contracted vendors reportedly told this week that the remaining 1,400 detainees would be transferred in the weeks ahead. CBS News Miami cited one source saying that “the last detainee will leave in June,” with the camp’s total operating cost to date now closing in on $1 billion.
However, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 47, said Wednesday that he has had no definitive notice from Washington about the facility’s future. Kevin Guthrie, the state’s Division of Emergency Management director, told reporters: “We have received zero communication formally saying, ‘Hey, this is the path going forward.’”
A spokesperson for DHS told the Daily Beast in a statement: “Any reports that DHS is pressuring the state to cease operations at Alligator Alcatraz are false. Florida continues to be a valuable partner in advancing President Trump’s immigration agenda, and DHS appreciates their support. DHS continuously evaluates detention needs and requirements to ensure they meet the latest operational requirements.”
The site has been a magnet for controversy since opening. As the Daily Beast reported, the camp flooded almost immediately after President Donald Trump, 79, Noem, and DeSantis toured it for its grand unveiling, with water leaking onto exposed wiring.
Detainees have separately described maggots in meals, 24-hour lighting, swarms of giant mosquitoes, and being treated “like rats in an experiment.”
An Amnesty International report in December went further, concluding conditions at the facility amounted to torture, with detainees saying they were punished by being confined in a 2-by-2-foot cage known as “the box”—a method compared to CIA black-site techniques. A federal judge has also ordered the site shuttered on environmental grounds.
