Construction is postponed until Alligator Alcatraz reaches its target capacity.
By Ramon Lopez
Original Air Date: July 18, 2025
Host: WSLR News reporter Ramon Lopez is headed to Camp Blanding near Jacksonville this weekend. That National Guard training ground is where the governor wants to open a second big camp in the state to concentrate immigrant detainees. Lopez brings us the details of this project.
Ramon Lopez: During a news conference in Tampa this past Wednesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he has delayed opening a second detention center for Immigration & Customs Enforcement undocumented immigrant detainees at Camp Blanding near Starke, Florida.
He said he wants the initial ICE holding facility in Florida, dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, in the Everglades, to have the desired 3,000 to 4,000 detainees before moving forward with his plans for Camp Blanding.
But it’s full steam ahead for turning the Florida National Guard training site into a detention facility, as a request for proposal for bids from potential private vendors to run the detention site has now been issued.
Gov. Ron DeSantis
Ron DeSantis: We sent out the request—the RFP—for Blanding. I think there are a number of people that submitted bids. What I’ve told the DEM is I’m willing to do Blanding once Alligator Alcatraz is filled. Blanding can be turned on very quickly. I know they’ll award the bids once we make that decision, but I don’t want to set up new infrastructure until—and, look, this may happen in a matter of a week or two, right? I mean, it’s possible.
RL: Democratic state lawmakers, including State Rep. Angie Nixon, criticized the Alligator Alcratraz setup. And days after President Trump and DeSantis toured the facility in the Everglades, attorneys, advocates and detainees’ relatives spoke out about poor conditions there. But Governor DeSantis said Alligator Alcatraz is up to standards, as will be the second ICE setup at Camp Blanding.
RD: This is not the Ritz-Carlton, okay?
[Audience laughs]
RD: We’re not doing this just to let people have food and shelter, although they do get that—all the minimum standards are upheld—but the reality is it’s there to be a quick processing center so that they can—we have a runway right there—they can just be flown back to their home country. That is the purpose of why we’re doing it. As that fills—once there’s a demand—then we would be able to go for Camp Blanding. But what I don’t want to do is set up Blanding if one is 60% full and the other is 40%. I’d rather just channel everyone to Alligator since it’s easier. You can add from whatever you need, but we definitely think that you can do easily 3,000 to 4,000 at Alligator Alcatraz. We have not yet received that many illegal aliens there, but it has grown pretty quickly.
RL: Specifics on the Blanding detainment site’s operation and grand opening are unclear. Florida was to have started building its second immigration detention center after the July 4 holiday weekend.
While detainees live in tents at Alligator Alcatraz, Blanding has army-style buildings and barracks that will be repurposed for those in custody, about 2,000 ICE detainees. Like Alligator Alcatraz, Blanding has an airfield, which the state plans to use to remove detained undocumented immigrants to their countries of origin.
While DeSantis has put his pet prison project on ice for now, protesters will still hold a rally at the front gate of Camp Blanding on Saturday at 3 p.m to voice their displeasure with building a second ICE detention center in Clay County.
Maria Garcia, with the Jacksonville Immigrant Rights Alliance, spoke to WTLV-TV, Jacksonville’s NBC affiliate. She said she plans to pour anti-freeze on the Camp Blanding ICE site.
Maria Garcia: We’re serious about this. Every step of the way, we’re going to fight it.
“They are such criminals,” and things like that, and “We want them out of our country”—why are we waiting for these detention centers to fill? Why aren’t they getting processed quickly?
RL: This is Ramon Lopez for WSLR News.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.