Gov. DeSantis said he wants to avoid establishing a new detention facility at Camp Blanding for now to avoid it being partially filled there & at Alligator Alcatraz.

The camp was first announced by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who is DeSantis’ former chief of staff and was manager of the governor’s unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign, late last month.

Trump and DeSantis have a complicated history, with the president’s endorsement propelling the little-known congressman to the governor’s mansion in 2018. In a television ad, DeSantis sat with one of his children and used mock bricks to build a border wall.

Potential effects include increased light and air pollution, habitat degradation for endangered species such as the Florida panther, and waste spills.

Alligator Alcatraz’ is visual policy aimed to stage terror as a message while making Donald Trump’s authoritarian and fascist politics a material reality.

Trump tours Florida's new detention camp as ICE continues to harass brown-skinned workers and onlookers in California.

The detention immigration facility is located in an idle airstrip in the Everglades that the DeSantis administration recently seized from Miami-Dade County using emergency powers.