SANDERSON, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference Thursday at the closed Baker Correctional Institution in Sanderson to announce it will soon be operational as a detention facility he calls “Deportation Depot,” a peer in purpose and function to "Alligator Alcatraz."
“The reason of this is not to just house people indefinitely. We want to process, stage, and then return illegal aliens to their home country. That is the name of the game,” DeSantis said. “(...) You will have the same services that you have at Alligator Alcatraz. Costs will be reimbursed by our federal partners and, as I mentioned, Lake City Airport’s right down the road, it’s 15 minutes away. This is something that the division of emergency management worked very quickly on. This will be operational soon."
Baker Correctional Institution is a state prison which was temporarily closed in 2021 to “ensure safe and secure” facilities amid a staffing shortage, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
“Timeline for construction on this; I think we’re going to be probably around 14, 15, 16 days, but again, as the governor said in his prepared remarks, we want to make sure that we do everything right,” said Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie. “You know, a building that’s been dormant now for a couple of years is going to have some unforeseen challenges that we did not see at the naked eye so, you know, our timeline is probably going to be about two weeks, but again, we may run into some challenges.”
Baker Correctional Institution is only about 30 miles away in a straight line from Camp Blanding, where DeSantis said he was initially looking to set up another facility like Alligator Alcatraz.
“When we had the plan that we submitted to DHS a couple months ago, we envisioned more than one facility. When I stood up Alligator Alcatraz, I said, ‘You know, we’re probably looking at another.’ I’ve been in Northeast Florida saying we were looking at doing (another) probably at Blanding, just because we have existing infrastructure. This is just a much better deal and so I’m glad we were able to do that.”
According to Guthrie and DeSantis, the facility will be able to hold 1,310 detainees and will come to “about a $6 million buildout.”
The governor’s announcement comes amid lawsuits over Alligator Alcatraz.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ordered a 14-day halt on additional construction at the site while witnesses testified at a hearing, part of a lawsuit seeking to halt operations and further construction. A second lawsuit claims detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated because they are barred from meeting lawyers, are being held without any charges, and a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings.
DeSantis said Thursday that the lawsuits had nothing to do with the announcement of a second detention facility.
“We have what we want at Alligator Alcatraz, we probably could do some more, but we were looking at a demand signal that is strong and we did need this. We were always planning on doing it, I just wanted to be sure that the demand was there. The demand is there,” DeSantis said. “We’ve continued to operate Alligator Alcatraz for that. Now, we do know, I mean, it’s obvious that this judge is hostile. This is a political thing, we get that, but we also know that we’re right on the law and if we don’t win with the trial judge, you know, we’ll ultimately win. Going forward, I do think we’ll get an adverse ruling stayed, I do think operations are going to continue.”
The governor was also joined by Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and Maj. Gen. John D. Haas, Adjutant General of Florida.
Sanderson is located about 40 miles west of Jacksonville.
[VIDEO BELOW: DeSantis discusses ‘Alligator Alcatraz’]
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Watch the news conference again in the video player below or by clicking here.