President Donald Trump's former prison chief is sounding the alarm on Florida’s new migrant detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” warning the facility is unsafe and logistically unworkable.
With an estimated cost of $450 million per year, Alligator Alcatraz was proposed to help ease the burden on local law enforcement by housing as many as 5,000 migrants awaiting deportation. Hugh Hurwitz, Bureau of Prisons director during Trump’s first term, however, suggested the facility might be a logistical nightmare, particularly as it relates to inmates’ health.
“Because we had (inmates) for a long time (in the Bureau of Prisons), we knew what their medical conditions were, so we could send them to the appropriate places,” Hurwitz said, speaking with Mother Jones.
“(Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has a challenge, because these people aren’t going to be there that long, so they don’t know their medical history, they just don’t have the depth of information that you have with sentenced inmates. And that makes everything more risky.”
Hurwitz also took issue with the expedited construction of the facility, which was announced in June, less than a month prior to its opening on July 1.
Using his emergency powers, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis quickly mobilized the National Guard and a slew of private companies to transform a portion of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport into a sprawling detention center that Trump said “might be as good as the real Alcatraz.”
“That was built by the state of Florida,” Hurwitz said. “I’ve never been in an ICE detention facility, so I don’t really know what an ICE detention facility looks like. That’s not how we would run a Bureau of Prisons facility.”
Staffing at the facility may also pose a logistical challenge, Hurwitz said, who noted prison systems nationwide have struggled for years hiring an adequate number of correctional officers.
“All correctional facilities nowadays are having difficulty hiring staff,” he said. “The private prisons and states and localities, they’re all looking for the same candidates, right? Most places have increased the salaries and created other incentives to recruit people, but it’s still difficult to find good candidates.”