Florida lawmakers, members of Congress invited to visit Alligator Alcatraz

The DeSantis administration is inviting Florida’s state legislators and members of Congress to attend a scheduled, 90-minute tour of Alligator Alcatraz on Saturday afternoon, according to an email shared with the Herald/Times.

The invitation, sent Wednesday, is the first extended to elected leaders since the facility began taking in immigrant detainees on July 2. It comes after the state denied access to the site to five Florida lawmakers during an unannounced visit on July 3, and after the Miami Herald and other media outlets reported on detainees’ complaints about the conditions at the makeshift detention facility in the Florida Everglades.

Stephanie Hartman, a spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which is overseeing the site, described the tour as “a proactive initiative” by the state to allow lawmakers access to the facility. She said detainees’ stories about problems at the facility — including toilets that don’t flush, large bugs and temperatures that fluctuate from icy to sweltering — are inaccurate.

“The reporting on the conditions in the facility is completely false,” Hartman told the Herald. “The facility meets all required standards and is in good working order.”

The hastily constructed detention facility — expected to eventually hold thousands ensnared in President Donald Trump’s effort to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the country — has been the subject of intense scrutiny since state contractors built it in eight days on top of a remote runway owned by Miami-Dade County off of U.S. Highway 41.

Using emergency powers, the DeSantis administration took control of the property and set up trailers and heavy-duty tents, where hundreds of immigrant detainees are now being held. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis visited the site last week and touted it as a game-changer for the Trump administration, which has struggled to find the space to house the migrants targeted for deportations.

After the state sent its invitation, five Democratic members of Florida’s congressional delegation said they would attend, but added that they were already planning an unannounced visit on Saturday.

U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lois Frankel, Darren Soto, Jared Moskowitz and Maxwell Frost said in a joint statement that they expect the state and federal governments to “try to paper over the inhumane treatment of detained people with a limited, scrubbed visit and rehearsed answers.”

“Given reports of horrific living conditions, rampant denial of due process, the risk of death and destruction from a hurricane, plus irreversible damage to the Everglades and tribal lands, we will attend this scripted ‘tour’ to see the conditions and speak to detainees and guards,” they said in a joint statement. “We will also return, unannounced, to conduct real oversight as the law allows and the American people demand.”

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, one of the state lawmakers who was denied access to the site last week, said that she was “glad to see public pressure forcing the State of Florida to open its doors for a scheduled tour of the Everglades Detention Center.”

“But let’s be clear: this isn’t a field trip — it’s oversight,” she said.

In the first full week of operations, the Miami Herald found that detainees were reporting issues with the facility’s toilets and showers and problems with the air-conditioning inside the tents where detainees are living. They also complained about having no access to confidential calls with their attorneys. One detainee was also taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, an incident the state initially described as “fake news.”

The stories, relayed to Herald by the wives of the immigrant detainees, were the first snapshots of the conditions inside the newly opened facility, which the state is responsible for operating.

Lawmakers who want to go will need to confirm their attendance by noon on Friday.

“Staff and other visitors will not be permitted,” the email states.

It is not yet clear how many lawmakers will make the trip down to the Everglades to visit the site. So far, the five Democrats from the Florida congressional delegation, and two South Florida state legislators — Sen. Ileana Garcia, R-Miami, and Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens — have said they plan to go.

“I’ve come across some complaints in the media that I’d like to investigate for myself,” Garcia told a Florida Phoenix reporter on Wednesday.

Miami Herald staff writer Grethel Aguila contributed to this report.

This story was originally published July 9, 2025 at 4:29 PM.