DHS Evacuates All Detainees From ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ as Hurricane Threat Forces Emergency Move

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Published on 18 June 2026

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Hurricane season runs for six months, from June through November. “Alligator Alcatraz” began operations on July 3, 2025, one month after the previous season had started. That season ultimately ended without any storms making landfall in Florida.

Shortly after the migrant transfer announcement, the National Hurricane Center said that the first tropical storm of this year’s hurricane season had formed off the Texas coast.

The controversial state-run detention center has been hailed by President Donald Trump but criticized by lawyers and human rights groups over its harsh conditions and mistreatment of detainees.

Detainees at the facility have reported a lack of access to lawyers and poor physical conditions, including worms in the food, toilets that do not flush, floors flooding with fecal waste and insects everywhere.

“Transferring people out of this cruel facility is an important step, but it does not erase the harm that has already been done,” Amy Godshall, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who filed a lawsuit against the state and the federal government over detainees’ alleged lack of access to legal representation, said in a statement. “The state and federal government must permanently close this facility and commit to never detaining people there again.”

The facility, surrounded by alligator-filled swamps in the Florida Everglades, was constructed by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to support Trump’s plan to mass detain and deport migrants.

Trump toured the facility just two days before it was opened last summer. The facility has processed and deported more than 20,000 detainees since its opening.

DeSantis said last month that the detention facility was always meant to be temporary.

President Donald Trump toured the facility just two days before it was opened last summer. (Getty Images)

Immigration advocates and lawyers said the hurricane season is just an excuse and not the real reason why the detainees have been transferred. They said they noticed an increase in the number of transfers of detainees to other facilities over the past few weeks and that they lost contact with dozens of detainees during these transfers.

“That’s a nonsense excuse because they opened in the middle of the worst part of hurricane season last year,” said Arianne Betancourt, a community advocate at the non-governmental group The Workers Circle who has spent months connecting detainees with attorneys.

“They are all gone,” Blankenship added. “They have been moved and disappeared into the system and are unavailable to family or counsel, typically for a period of about a week.”