Alaska has joked about setting up a “Bear Alcatraz” to help the Trump administration detain more illegal migrants — as the White House urged Republican states to work with the feds to build similar detention facilities across the country.
The state quipped about the plan just days after Florida opened a massive new immigration detention center — dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” — to help house hundreds of illegal migrants.
“We don’t have alligators, but we have lots of bears,” the state of Alaska said in a statement to Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
However, the Last Frontier — which President Trump won in the 2024 election with 55% of the vote — said there were no earnest plans currently in place for “an Alaska version of Alligator Alcatraz.”
It came as White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller called on the governors of GOP states to offer up similar spaces to help the Trump administration crack down on illegal immigration.
“Every governor of a red state, if you are watching tonight: Pick up the phone, call DHS, work with us to build facilities in your state so we can get the illegals and criminals out,” he told the network.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier kickstarted the push last month when he proposed building a new detention center — surrounded by alligators and pythons — on a 39-square-mile plot of land. --->READ MORE HERE
The first group of immigrants has arrived at a new detention center deep in the Florida Everglades that officials have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” a spokesperson for Republican state Attorney General James Uthmeier told The Associated Press.
“People are there,” Press Secretary Jae Williams said, though he didn’t immediately provide further details on the number of detainees or when they arrived.
“Next stop: back to where they came from,” Uthmeier said on the X social media platform Wednesday. He’s been credited as the architect behind the Everglades proposal.
“Stood up in record time under @GovRonDeSantis ’ leadership & in coordination with @DHSgov & @ICEgov, Florida is proud to help facilitate @realDonaldTrump ’s mission to enforce immigration law,” the account for the Florida Division of Emergency Management posted to the social media site X on Thursday. Requests for additional information from the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and FDEM, which is building the site, were not returned early Thursday afternoon.
The facility, at an airport used for training, will have an initial capacity of about 3,000 detainees, DeSantis said. The center was built in eight days and features more than 200 security cameras, 28,000-plus feet (8,500 meters) of barbed wire and 400 security personnel.
Immigrants who are arrested by Florida law enforcement officers under the federal government’s 287(g) program will be taken to the facility, according to an official in President Donald Trump’s administration. The program is led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and allows police officers to interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation.
The facility is expected to be expanded in 500 bed increments until it has an estimated 5,000 beds by early July.
A group of Florida Democratic state lawmakers headed to the facility Thursday to conduct “an official legislative site visit,” citing concerns about conditions for detainees and the awarding of millions of dollars in state contracts for the construction.
“As lawmakers, we have both the legal right and moral responsibility to inspect this site, demand answers, and expose this abuse before it becomes the national blueprint,” the legislators said in a joint statement ahead of the visit.
Federal agencies signaled their opposition Thursday to a lawsuit brought by environmental groups seeking to halt operations at the detention center. Though Trump applauded the center during an official tour earlier this week, the filing on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security seemed to try to distance his administration from the facility, and said no federal money to date has been spent on it. --->READ MORE HERE
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