Overview

• President Trump toured the new detention site on July 1, framing it as a key component of his mass deportation agenda.
• Construction transformed the obsolete Dade-Collier jetport within the Big Cypress reserve into encampments of trailers and tents in alligator-infested swamps.
• With ICE facilities operating at 140% capacity and holding about 59,000 people, the administration sought urgent relief through expanded detention space.
• Environmentalists and Miccosukee and Seminole tribes have filed federal lawsuits and staged mass protests over threats to the fragile Everglades ecosystem and tribal lands.
• Critics such as Rep. Maxwell Frost and the ACLU have condemned the facility as "deliberately cruel," warning it could replicate systemic neglect found in other detention centers.