A group of Florida Democrats in Congress introduced a bill to cut off funding for Alligator Alcatraz and any immigration detention facility located in or near the Everglades. The bill aims to ensure access, public disclosure on how it operates, and Congressional oversight.

Dubbed the "No Cages in the Everglades Act," the six-page bill was sponsored by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston

Some people detained at the facility have violent criminal histories. But data and news reports about the first month’s arrivals show the majority of Alligator Alcatraz’s detainees do not have U.S. criminal convictions.

In the rush to open a detention camp in the Florida Everglades for “some of the most vicious” migrants illegally in the country, state and federal officers detained a 15-year-old boy with no criminal record and sent him in handcuffs to Alligator Alcatraz, the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times have learned.

Several immigrant detainees described high tension and anxiety at the remote, hastily constructed facility over a lack of information, recreation and access to medication.

Seeking to expand Florida’s role in federal immigration enforcement, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in May 2025 submitted the state’s Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan to the Trump administration. The plan,

Alligator Alcatraz, a migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades, is surrounded by swamps infested with dangerous alligators and pythons.

The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida is seeking to join a federal lawsuit aimed at halting the construction and operation of a new immigration detention facility in the Everglades, which tribal members consider their sacred ancestral homelands.

A tribal leader told Newsweek that he and members in the Big Cypress National Preserve of Florida, which is adjacent to the state's Alligator Alcatraz migrant detention center, are seeking legal remedies against officials because environmental efforts are taking "a huge step backward."