Alligator Alcatraz era formally ends as Miami-Dade takes back remote airport

Douglas Hanks and Churchill Ndonwie, Miami Herald on Jul 23, 2026

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MIAMI — Miami-Dade has resumed control of the former Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention camp, returning to the county a remote airfield previously used as a small airport for training landings and take-offs, the county’s Aviation Department confirmed on Thursday.

The news comes roughly a year after Gov. Ron DeSantis seized the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport from Miami-Dade under emergency powers he claimed for himself based upon what he deemed a statewide crisis from illegal immigration. His administration converted the airfield into a temporary detention camp for people accused of federal immigration violations, a move the county criticized but did not fight in court.

Florida began moving detainees out of the camp weeks ago and on June 25 DeSantis made it official by holding a news conference at the site saying the detention facility had officially closed. That made it a matter of time before his administration formally turned the property back over to the county, and on Thursday a spokesperson for Miami-Dade’s Aviation Department confirmed the moment had arrived.

The Aviation Department “has resumed control of the airport and just needs to perform one final sweep of the runway and taxiway before normal operations can resume,” wrote spokesperson Greg Chin, though he said the county does not yet have an estimate on when normal operations would actually resume. “We don’t yet have a timetable” for that, he said.

In a federal court filing Monday, lawyers for the state submitted a declaration by Tim Reardon, an employee of the Florida Division of Emergency Management who supervised operations at the detention center, stating that as of July 18, the demobilization of the site had been complete.

“All facilities have been dismantled and removed from the site, and the site is now no longer capable of holding Detainees,” he stated.

A Middle District federal judge had requested that the state submit evidence that showed the detention was officially closed as part of a First Amendment lawsuit brought on by civil rights lawyers on behalf of immigrants who had been held there.

While Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she’d like to see the airport and the roughly 20,000 acres of county-owned wetlands around it be converted into a federal park, that plan would require Florida’s cooperation and multiple regulatory and financial hoops to clear before becoming viable.

While owned by Miami-Dade, the site sits so far west in the midst of the Everglades that part of it is in Collier County.

It’s not clear when the remote airport will be available for small-plane pilots looking to make brief touchdowns as part of their yearly licensing requirements. A Federal Aviation Administration notice from July 10 says the runway is closed till September. “A resumption of normal flight operations has not yet been determined,” Chin said.