Timeline of Confusion: A Look at FL’s Cost Projections for ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ ‘Deportation Depot’

By Liv Caputo, The Florida Phoenix

For months, the price tag for the Everglades immigrant detention center the DeSantis administration calls “Alligator Alcatraz” was left to media speculation.

Confusion abounded as various reports estimated the facility could cost anywhere between $245 million and $450 million for the year. But analysts weren’t the only ones drawing conjectures.

So were the emergency managers operating the center.

According to nearly 3,000 pages of records reviewed by the Phoenix, the Florida Division of Emergency Management (DEM) drastically adjusted its calculations at least five times between June and November 2025.

Each calculation came out higher than the last.

Here’s a timeline from June to December of what DEM believed the “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot” migrant detention facilities would cost, and how the agency arrived at those numbers:

• June 23: At 7:30 p.m., DEM publishes a 37-page “vendor assignment” manual identifying its hand-picked contractors to construct and operate the site and what their tasks were.
  • DEM picked its no-bid contractors based on their “proven experience.” They were charged with creating facilities including staff villages, climate-controlled sleep trailers, and isolation cells. There would be one officer per 48 detainees during the day, one per 75 at night. 
  • From June 24-July 7, DEM shelled out $72,708,333.85 to 12 vendors: CDR Health, CRS, Doodie Calls, GardaWorld, Garner, Gothams, Granny’s, IRG, LCDR, LTS, SLS, Garner.
• June 24: Executive Director Kevin Guthrie fills out an early draft application for a federal reimbursement grant — one that won’t be announced for another month.
  • He projects more than $1.2 billion in spending on detention centers in two years, but expects the federal government to pay $1 billion of that.
  • He tells a Miami ICE agent, confused about which Florida agency should receive the grant, that DEM has been “designated” for the award.
• July 1: Alligator Alcatraz opens in the Big Cypress National Preserve, within the Everglades.
• July 26: Guthrie writes to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, asking her to send immigration judges and other personnel to expedite detention and deportation proceedings. He says Florida is constructing its own courtroom at the site.
• Aug. 1: DEM makes a formal request to DHS for judge advocate generals to oversee immigration proceedings.
• Aug. 7: The state formally applies for $608.4 million in federal reimbursement, estimating total costs for detention centers will be $1.4 billion. FEMA denies the request, citing the size of the application and a lack of an environmental review of the premises.
• Sep. 5: Deportation Depot opens at the former Baker Correctional Institution.
• Sep. 29: DEM projects that Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot would cost more than $1.7 billion through July 2027, with approximately $1.1 billion to be footed by the state. 
  • Floridians would pay $807 million for Alligator Alcatraz and $294 million for Deportation Depot.
  • The remaining $608.4 million would be covered by the federal government.
• Sep. 30: FEMA approves Florida for the federal reimbursement grant — with a catch.
  • The state still needs to provide detailed reasoning for the costs it wants reimbursed and a federal environmental review still needs to be completed before Florida can use any of those funds.
• Oct. 20: DEM tells FEMA that Alligator Alcatraz cost $390.2 million between June and October.
  • DEM revises its projections, now believing that Alligator Alcatraz alone would cost about $1.065 billion by June 30, 2026. New figures for Deportation Depot weren’t included.
• Nov. 20: The state submits a $1.065 billion application seeking reimbursement of $608.4 million. 
• Nov. 26: FEMA tells DEM it can request up to $89 million from the grant because these specific allocations aren’t subject to the required environmental review.
• Dec. 3: DEM asks FEMA to strike the environmental requirement altogether, because it believes Alligator Alcatraz shouldn’t be subject to it.
• Dec. 8: DEM submits a $30 million payment request from the grant.
• Dec. 10: FEMA denies it because the environmental review isn’t complete.
• Dec. 15: FEMA sends DEM a new version of the grant that explicitly bans reimbursements going toward modifications for Alligator Alcatraz:
  • “In the event that the recipient applies for the grant to request reimbursement for costs for modifications at the South Florida Soft Sided Facility, commonly referred to as ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ then those costs will not be reimbursed.”