America's Talking - Trump Tours ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ That’s Assisting in Deportation Efforts

Episode Date: July 5, 2025

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump traveled to Florida Tuesday to visit ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ the new, quickly constructed immigrant detention center that will hold up to 5,000 foreign nationals facing deportation. “Very soon, this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet,” Trump said at a panel Tuesday. The facility – which might ultimately look more like a deportation camp – is the nearly 40-square-mile Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Miami-Dade County. Nestled amidst the wetlands of the Big Cypress National Preserve and with a nearly 11,000-foot runway, it was selected to be quickly transformed into a deportation site. It is typically used for military training.  Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_7908ce1e-4815-4e6e-ad2a-353ff30e71d3.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I am Steve Wilson, Southeast Regional Editor with the Center Square. And with me is National Reporter Morgan Sweeney. And today we're going to be talking about probably the most aptly named Migrate Detention Facility ever built, which is called Alligator Alcatraz. The interesting thing about this, the location of this place out in the Florida Everglades is this was originally designed to be Miami's New York. airport in the 1960s, and they stopped construction. It was going to be the largest airport built in the world, and it was designed to handle a supersonic Boeing airliner that was going to be the wave of the future, which, of course, the fuel crisis derailed, and a lot of environmentalists were upset about

the potential destruction of the Everglades. So they only built one runway, and it's just been a training airport ever since. Morgan, talk about... Trump's visit to Alligator Alcatraz and what you think that he got out of that? Well, it seems like the president enjoyed himself. I think he enjoyed seeing some of his vision come to life with a state helping out in such a huge way with his mass deportation agenda. I think just with the size and scale of illegal immigration that happened under the previous administration. The current administration is having to do everything that it can and come up with creative solutions to implement deportation on the scale that Trump wants to see just because

it's so massive. So Florida has stepped up and I believe it was the state attorney general who kind of selected this location or brought it forward as a possible option. And they're now setting up this major temporary detention center that's supposed to be able to hold up to 5,000 people. So yeah, it's a massive undertaking. I think Trump was excited about it. It's interesting to me that at one point, Governor Ron DeSantis and President Trump were quite at loggerheads, kind of exchanging little jabs in the media back and forth.

And now it seems like to me that DeSantis is Trump's biggest ally when it comes to state-related immigration efforts. As you well know, Florida has the most 287G agreements with ICE, which allow local law enforcement and state law enforcement to become deputized and become, and become basically immigration agents. Talk about what DeSantis, how he's become probably Trump's greatest ally in the battle against illegal immigration. Well, I think that similar to Trump's relationship

with other people that have run for president, I think that sometimes their policies aren't actually that different, but it's just because at once they were kind of jockeying for the same thing. And so now that Trump is in office and he doesn't have to worry about DeSantis as a political threat, I think the two have teamed up. And I think they're on the same page when it comes to this issue. So I don't think it's hard for DeSantis to want to help in that way. So I guess one of the things that DeSantis talks about,

is how it used to be that illegal immigration was a problem in the border states, but with some of the policies of the previous administration made pretty much every state of border state. Is what Florida's done with the 287G agreements, Alligator Alcatraz, and all the other things that DeSantis has done in the Florida legislature as well, is this kind of, could this be a model for other states to follow, especially red states with Republican governors and Republican-dominated legislatures? Well, I think the administration, that's exactly what they hope will happen. During the panel the other day at Alligator Alcatraz,

Christy Noem, Secretary Noam said many times that she'd like to see other states follow suit and so did some of the other people that were there, lawmakers. But yeah, they'd like to see other states implement this kind of thing because, I mean, with how large it's going to be and how quickly they've been able to set it up and everything, it does seem like it's really going to help their efforts. Well, I know with the so-called big, beautiful bill, there's going to be some money in there to hire some new border enforcement agents. But like with Florida with the 287G program, do you see other states becoming kind of what we used to call in the military force multipliers that allow that make it to where the entire burden is not going to be on the

federal government to enforce our immigration laws? I mean, I think crazier things have happened. and the fact that this has even come about, I mean, they've been able to make this airport ready in just eight days. So, and I think there are a lot of Republican leaders that really want to make Trump happy for whatever reason, either just because they really like him or it helps them politically.

And so I can very much see it happening in other states. Yeah. I think it's interesting how, This gave Trump an opportunity to pivot from the Israel-Iran war and the U.S. strike, which he sounded like he doesn't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, but he also doesn't want us to commit troops over their long term. This allowed him to pivot back to immigration, which to me is probably the most important issue and probably the one that won the election. Do you see it the same way? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely convenient. I think there's so much going on with the administration that, yeah, I guess it's nice timing for him and for it that they were able to turn their focus somewhere else.

And thankfully, the ceasefire is holding for now. So hopefully that will continue. It'll be interesting to see with the border wall and whatnot. But do you think that any other state is going to follow Florida's lead where you have, maybe even a special session of the legislature where they're going to pass some immigration-related laws that do so at the state level. Do you see anyone following that possibly? Again, I think it's very possible. I mean, you've got quite a few Republican governors there down along the border, and I think that they would be more than happy to, you know, tighten up some of their immigration policies. Yeah, I can definitely see that happening.

Well, I think that's all we have. Morgan, thanks for joining me today. And you can follow us at the cimmersquare.com.