Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced plans to transfer all county-owned land at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport to the National Park Service or other Everglades restoration partners once the Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention facility closes. In a Thursday memo to County Commissioners, Levine Cava stated her administration intends to pursue the transfer of the roughly 17,000-acre wetlands area within Big Cypress National Preserve for permanent conservation use as part of the Central Everglades Restoration Plan.
Levine Cava argued that the remote site has limited value as an aviation asset, pointing to high maintenance costs and flight restrictions due to its location near sensitive wetlands. She wrote that returning the lands to conservation represents "a historic opportunity to permanently protect these lands and contribute meaningfully to one of the most ambitious environmental restoration efforts in the nation." The transfer would also reduce county liabilities associated with managing an aviation facility with minimal strategic utility while creating opportunities to leverage federal restoration funding. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that all detainees at the facility had been transferred to federal sites for their safety ahead of hurricane season.
The facility opened July 3, 2025, and has faced harsh criticism from lawyers, families and human rights groups over conditions and treatment of detainees. Detainees have reported poor physical conditions including worms in food, nonfunctioning toilets, flooding with fecal waste, and pervasive mosquitoes and insects. The detention center has cost far more than anticipated, with vendor contracts exceeding 824 million dollars for operations and maintenance alone, not including construction. According to an analysis by The Atlantic, the expenses were so high that it would have been cheaper to purchase each of the approximately 1,800 men detained there a one-bedroom condominium in Orlando and pay for a full-time personal guard. Florida has been approved for 608 million dollars in reimbursements but has received only 58.2 million dollars so far.
Levine Cava's administration will work with the County Attorney's Office and state and federal partners to identify legal transfer mechanisms, including conservation easements, deed restrictions, intergovernmental agreements, land exchanges or direct conveyance. Her office will provide formal recommendations to the Commission in the coming months. The transfer would permanently remove the lands from future detention, industrial or intensive commercial development and dedicate them to ecological restoration, habitat preservation and environmental protection.