Maxwell: Even the feds know ‘Alligator Alcatraz' was a boondoggle

Virtually everyone who has looked at "Alligator Alcatraz" with a critical eye has reached the same conclusion: It was a bad idea that was executed even worse.

For starters, the state made a hasty decision to spend half a billion dollars building a makeshift prison in the middle of the Everglades, a fragile ecosystem taxpayers had already spent billions of dollars to restore.

You don't need a degree in finance or environmental science to know you're going to have problems, if you decide to let more than 1,000 people defecate daily in a place where there's no system to handle the waste.

The idea gets even dumber when you consider that U.S. taxpayers already spent more than $10 billion to restore and protect the Everglades.

Basically, this was like paying a bunch of companies to clean up your front yard and then paying another company to install a fleet of outhouses after the clean-up is complete. Both your neighbors and your money manager would think you're nuts.

And that says nothing of the many stories we've read about the unconstitutional treatment of detainees. Or the gobs of money spent in no-bid deals and questionable contracts - including $92 million given to a single porta-potty company whose lobbyist is close to both Donald Trump and Florida Republicans.

There's little evidence the Trump administration cares much about human rights or shady contracts down in Florida. But the fact that this facility is basically lighting tax dollars on fire may finally be a concern. That was the takeaway from a recent New York Times piece that said: "The Department of Homeland Security has concluded the detention center in the Everglades is too expensive to keep operating."

Federal and state officials consider closing Alligator Alcatraz

"The DeSantis administration has been spending more than $1 million a day to run the center, which is in a swampy, isolated area between Miami and Naples," the Times reported. "Vendors had to truck in things like tents, power generators and trailers for staff members to live in. They also had to constantly truck out sewage and other waste."

In other words: It was precisely the boondoggle most people predicted. So now there's talk of shuttering the facility that taxpayers spent more than $450 million to open just 10 months ago.

Gov. Ron DeSantis says he isn't sure the shuttering will really happen - that the feds have told him they really dig his costly tents-and-cages facility. Regardless, DeSantis has decided to declare the facility a success, saying: "If we shut the lights out on it tomorrow, we will be able to say it served its purpose."

Maybe if that purpose was enriching contractors.

Last year, the Orlando Sentinel penned a piece - "Florida's disaster pipeline funnels millions to politically connected contractors" - that looked at how DeSantis had enacted "emergency" powers that allowed him to suspend state laws, building codes and the competitive bidding process to award billions to companies with political ties to him and the Republican Party of Florida.

That story had a stench nearly as bad as the pricey porta-potties. Yet none of this state's so-called fiscal conservatives batted an eye or demanded an audit. That includes this state's clownish CFO who claimed to be appalled by city expenditures that were literally less than 0.01% of what some of these ‘Alcatraz' contractors got.

Maxwell: Florida flouts auditing law on ‘emergency' immigration spending

And shady spending was just the tip of the iceberg. The red-flag reports have been nasty and nonstop on several fronts.

For instance, the pricey contracts weren't just given to politically connected firms; they were sometimes hidden. ("‘Alligator Alcatraz' Contracts Disappeared From a Florida State Database")

Lawyers for detainees said their rights were routinely violated. ("Detainees at Florida's ‘Alligator Alcatraz' say they were punished for seeking legal help")

Judges agreed. ("Florida's Alligator Alcatraz violates detainee rights, judge finds")

And just this week, a federal judge again ruled that the state can't deny detainees - some of whom haven't even been charged with a crime - access to phones to contact their attorneys.

Truly patriotic Americans don't have to be forced to honor the United States Constitution. They understand why due process separates us from authoritarian regimes.

It's certainly fair to say that many Americans wanted a crackdown on illegal immigration. But you can carry out that crackdown while still respecting taxpayers' money and basic human rights.

Serious leaders could anyway. Maybe not Florida's leaders. When watchdogs raised legitimate concerns here, the Republican Party of Florida responded by promoting "Alligator Alcatraz" beer koozies.

When the post-mortem on this costly boondoggle is finally written, it will note that legitimate objections were raised - and ignored - every step of the way.

Florida taxpayers likely on the hook for Alligator Alcatraz

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This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 2:17 PM.