Florida is preparing to open another illegal immigrant detention facility following the recent establishment of “Alligator Alcatraz.” Florida officials have confirmed that the new facility, which will be called the “Deportation Depot,” will initially be capable of holding 1,300 illegal immigrants.
Announcing the new illegal immigrant detention facility on Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said, “We are authorizing and will be soon opening this new illegal immigration detention, processing, and deportation facility here in North Florida. We are calling this the Deportation Depot.”
In a Thursday press release, the Florida governor noted that the Deportation Depot will be housed at the Baker Correctional Institution, which is located in Sanderson, Florida. According to Fox News, while the new detention facility, which has been dormant since 2021, will initially be able to hold 1,300 beds for illegal immigrants, the facility could eventually be expanded to hold 2,000 beds.
As part of Thursday’s announcement, DeSantis emphasized that officials do not merely want to “house people indefinitely” at the Deportation Depot and Alligator Alcatraz, but to “process, stage, and then return illegal aliens to their home country.”
“That is the name of the game, and that’s what we do in Florida,” DeSantis said. “We know that this is an important national priority, not only of President Trump, but of the American people. Of all the issues in the election, I can tell you, this immigration and border issue was either the top or right near the top on all people’s minds, and so we have identified this location.”
DeSantis explained that the new Deportation Depot facility will feature the same services that are offered at Alligator Alcatraz and that the costs associated with the new facility will be reimbursed by the federal government.
In Thursday’s press release, DeSantis said the development of another illegal immigrant detention facility in Florida builds on the success of the Alligator Alcatraz facility in the Everglades. DeSantis added, “We’ll enforce the law, we’ll hold the line, and we will keep delivering results.”
The governor’s office emphasized that Florida is “setting the standard” for how individual states can work with President Donald Trump’s administration to protect American citizens from the “scourge of illegal immigration.”
