A view of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, the planned site of 'Alligator Alcatraz'. Photo: WPTV

“Alligator Alcatraz,” as Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier calls it, is being erected on a little-used airstrip in the Everglades, the vast expanse of marshes and swamps that covers much of southern Florida and hosts a dizzying array of wildlife, from hundreds of bird species to bobcats, panthers, crocodiles and alligators.

You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons,” Uthmeier said in an announcement video that casts the facility as “the one-stop shop to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda” and features slow-motion footage of snapping alligators.

Construction of the new Florida facility comes just weeks after Trump said he had directed federal agencies to reopen the original Alcatraz – a prison famously known for being virtually inescapable because of its location on a small island in the San Francisco Bay. And in his first term, Trump floated the idea of fortifying the US southern border with a water-filled trench infested with alligators, the New York Times reported (Trump denied it).

Building “Alligator Alcatraz” means a temporary repurposing of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, which Uthmeier describes as “an old, virtually abandoned airport facility right in the middle of the Everglades.”

The overall site is about 39 square miles and contains a runway of about 11,000 feet. It sits 36 miles west of the Miami business district and just 6 miles north of Everglades National Park.

Operating the new detention center would cost the state approximately $450 million a year, according to a senior DHS official.