The FAA issued a “VIP Movement Notification” for July 1 for Ochopee, Florida, near the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention site.
‘Alligator Alcatraz’ migrant detention center planned in Florida
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier released a trailer video for “Alligator Alcatraz,” an immigration detention center slated to open in July.
- A VIP Movement Notification was issued by the FAA for Ochopee, Florida, suggesting a possible presidential visit.
- The notification indicates a 30/10 NMR, the protective radius reserved for the U.S. President.
- Ochopee is the location of a planned immigration detention center nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz.”
- The White House has not confirmed President Trump’s travel plans.
Is President Donald Trump is heading to Florida’s so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center?
“I spoke with the President this weekend,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said June 30. “He’s very excited about doing it.”
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a “VIP Movement Notification” for Tuesday, July 1, for Ochopee, Fla. The alert is for a 30/10 NMR, which stands for a protective inner core radius of 10 nautical miles and an outer ring radius of 30 nautical miles.
Those distances are reserved for the U.S. president.
‘Dangerous wildlife’
Ochopee is the site of Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport. It has been in the news for more than a week as the location of a planned immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades that has been dubbed Alligator Alcatraz.
“You literally have the president coming down tomorrow to tout what Florida has done,” De Santis said. “I think by tomorrow it will be ready for business.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Trump’s visit during a June 30 press briefing, calling the facility “an efficient and low-cost way to help carry out the largest mass deportation in American history.”
“There is only one road leading in, and there is only one way out,” Leavitt said of the estimated $450 million center. “It is isolated and surrounded by dangerous wildlife and unforgiving terrain.”
Leavitt said the alligators surrounding the facility will serve as a “deterrent” to escape.
DeSantis did offer the president an invitation to visit the facility during a cable news interview.
The governor even said that Air Force One could land at the Everglades airstrip, once envisioned as an airport site. The first detainees from what Trump has promised will be the biggest immigration deportation crackdown in U.S. history are to arrive at the holding facility July 1.
“I think the president will be impressed with what these guys are doing out here,” DeSantis said on the “Fox and Friends” program June 29.
Environmental groups sue to stop building Everglades detention center
Nonetheless, the development of a detention facility at the site near Everglades National Park is a source of contention.
Two groups, Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, have filed a lawsuit against the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop what they said is the “unlawful construction of a prison in the heart of the Everglades.”
Sierra Club Florida also is opposed to the development, which it said is “irresponsible.”
“This proposal is not only deeply inhumane, it is profoundly irresponsible from an environmental, ethical, and fiscal standpoint,” the state chapter of the national organization said in a statement June 24.
On Saturday, June 28, protesters gathered at the access road to the Dade-Collier Airport to protest the construction of the detention center. The demonstration was led by Betty Osceola, an activist and a member of the Miccosukee tribe.
Trump popular in Miami-Dade, but immigration conflicting supporters
The president’s visit would come as his immigration policies are roiling Miam-Dade County, a jurisdiction that has been a longtime bastion of Hispanic population, business hub and political base. And a place where Republicans have made significant inroads in the Trump era.
Trump crushed Vice President Kamala Harris in the traditional blue county in the 2024 presidential balloting. He lost the county to President Joe Biden in 2020, though by a narrower margin than in 2016 against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
But the crackdown on immigration, particularly detaining and deporting people with pending asylum and other status cases, has caused consternation. So has the administration’s ending temporary protective status for Venezuelans and canceling a humanitarian parole program that benefited Cubans and Nicaraguans.
Earlier this month, state Sen. Ileana Garcia, a Miami Republican, spoke out on X in a post highly critical of White House immigration adviser Stephen Miller.
“I understand the importance of deporting criminal aliens, but what we are witnessing are arbitrary measures to hunt down people who are complying with their immigration hearings — in many cases, with credible fear of persecution claims — all driven by a Miller-like desire to satisfy a self-fabricated deportation goal,” wrote Garcia, a founder of the Latinas for Trump movement.
“This undermines the sense of fairness and justice that the American people value,” she said.
Another southern Miami-Dade County immigration holding facility, the Krome Detention Center, has been the site of protests. Activists and attorneys for some of those being held there have decried the conditions and overcrowding.
While critical of the Biden Administration’s border policies, Miami’s three Cuban-American members of Congress, Mario-Diaz-Balart, Carlos Gimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar, have also supported continuing TPS coverage for Venezuleans. In May, the three, all Republicans, issued a statement saying they “have consistently supported and will continue to support Temporary Protected Status” for Venezuelans in the United States.
“There is a clear distinction between individuals, such as members of the Tren de Aragua who exploited Biden’s open border and wreaked havoc on American communities, and the many Venezuelans who have arrived in our country, fleeing the political crises under the repressive dictatorship of [Nicolás] Maduro with legitimate claims of persecution,” the lawmakers said.
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Contributing: Joey Garrison, USA TODAY.
