Maxwell Frost

Alligator Alcatraz operations are indeed winding down, according to Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost who made his third visit to the immigrant detention center on Tuesday.

Airplanes tracked via Flight Aware show at least 12 flights this week leaving the immigrant detention center going to other facilities.

"What I saw was a facility that is being wound down and shut down," Frost said in a video he posted on X (formerly Twitter) after leaving Alligator Alcatraz in Ochopee in Collier County. "First of all, they aren't getting any new people. They are just sending people to other facilities."

Frost, an Orlando Democrat who represents Florida's 10th Congressional District, is the first Millennial elected to Congress and the son of a Cuban immigrant.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during press conferences in May that the detention center always was meant to be temporary until the federal government got a better handle on the border and/or had enough beds to house the immigrants being detained at Alligator Alcatraz, a name DeSantis gave the facility and had put on signs at the detention center entrance and along U.S. 41/Tamiami Trail in Ochopee and in the Everglades.

DeSantis, the Florida Department of Emergency Management (FDEM) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) haven't officially confirmed a closure.

"I have not gotten any official word that they're going to not be sending illegal aliens there," DeSantis said at a May 13 press conference in Titusville. "That was never meant to be permanent, and obviously it's at an airport down there where everything that we constructed is temporary. We didn't build any permanent facilities down there because we knew was going to be temporary."

Congressman says number of detainees down by more than half since April

"There are 655 folks in it right now when just a few weeks ago, there were 1,400 people," Frost said in his X video. "And in fact while I was there, there was a flight being loaded up and sent out. There were two flights scheduled for today alone."

Rumors the controversial detention center on the eastern edge of Collier County would be closing in June – less than a year since opening – were reported May 12 by the Naples Daily News, the New York Times and CBS Miami.

The detention center, also called the Soft-Sided Facility South and South Florida Detention Center in court documents and on government websites, opened July 2, 2025. President Donald Trump visited and gave the facility his praise on July 1.

Operated by the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) in coordination with ICE, Alligator Alcatraz was built by the state of Florida in the middle of swampland on a former airstrip. It is located 60 miles southeast of Naples and 51 miles west of Miami on the Collier/Miami-Dade County line.

A search of Flight Aware, a flight-tracking website, shows 12 flights leaving Alligator Alcatraz housed at the Dade-Collier Training Airport between May 21 and the afternoon of May 27. Most of those flights were headed to Alexandria International Airport in Louisiana. The Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center is located about 50 miles east.

"I said on Day One it was going to be temporary," DeSantis said at a May 7 press conference in Lakeland. "At some point, we will, of course, break it down. That was always the goal. … “If we shut the lights out tomorrow, we will be able to say it served its purpose."

At $1 million a day and more than $1 billion total to run the facility located far from any infrastructure such as running water, Internet and phone lines, Frost calls the venture a failure.

DeSantis: 22,000 staged and deported from Alligator Alcatraz

"The whole thing is a failure," Frost said during his X video. "They used a billion of our dollars to enrich private contracts that built and operated the place."

"The first two times I went to this facility, the processing center was packed with people being processed, and staff, and it was like chaotic. And this time, there was nobody in there," Frost said. "There were maybe two or three staff people in there and it was completely silent. And a lot of the offices looked like they had been cleared out. Plus, the staff kept using words like 'decompressing' or 'we're unwinding' ... They said everything but 'this place is shutting down.'"

At the Titusville press conference, DeSantis didn't say Alligator Alcatraz was closing. He expounded on its purpose.

"We haven't sent anyone from the state," he said. "The feds determine who goes there, then the state handles the processing and the staging, and then the feds take them and send them back to their home country, and it's worked very, very well."

And why?

"DHS didn't have the ability to hold these illegal aliens that we were apprehending, so because we did that with their support and their reimbursement, we were able to get 22,000 staged and deported, who otherwise would have been released back into Florida communities," DeSantis said. "So, being able to fill that void, where at the time the federal government did not have the resources to do it, no question that save lives, no question. It's increased public safety, and no question, it's the right thing to do to defend the sovereignty of this country."

Open records requests by the Naples Daily News to FDEM asking for a list of detainees who have gone through Alligator Alcatraz have not been fulfilled. Lawsuits involving legislator access, the environment and alleged abuse continue in various stages.

DeSantis says he is fine if the facility is no longer needed.

Since opening in July 2025, the federal government … "now they've gotten a lot of money over the last nine months, they've been able to work and adjust their operations accordingly, and ideally I wouldn't want to be involved in this business at all," he said in Titusville. "I mean, if the federal government, if they control the border and the people here illegally, they handle, if they could do that with no state support, all the better. … if they have beds other places where they're able to do it, that's fine."

It's not over when the doors close: Frost

"We can't just allow this place to shut down and then not talk about it anymore," Frost said in the X video. "That's what they want because they used a billion of our dollars to enrich private contracts that built and operated the place. They want us to move on because they don't want us to talk about the human rights abuses and civil rights abuses that happened there and in other facilities as well. So, by going here, not only do we keep the story alive but I'm telling you guys, this is not going to end with it being shut down."

Detainees alleged abuses – beatings, pepper spray, lack of food – in court documents and interviews.

U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia) and Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) started an investigation into the reports in March. They focused particularly on a torture device called "the box," a 2-foot-by-2-foot cage reportedly used to isolate detainees, shackling them inside.

There has been no update from the senators on the investigation.

"We have to continue to push for accountability and consequences for people who broke the law and misused our money," Frost said. "And when I say misused our money, I mean use the money meant for hurricane preparedness to kidnap and cage our neighbors."

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J. Kyle Foster is a senior growth & development reporter for The News-Press & Naples Daily News. She has more than 30 years of experience as a journalist, covering healthcare, education, government and finance, among other topics. Reach her by emailing [email protected].

Mickenzie Hannon, reporter for The News-Press & Naples Daily News, contributed to this story.