Florida's $1.2 Billion Flagship Detention Show Is Finally Over

The facility once heralded as the future of immigration enforcement has been ordered to stand down permanently, leaving its most enthusiastic champions to account for the bill.

Operators of Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz' detention center have been notified to begin full demobilization.
The facility was marketed as a flagship immigration enforcement showpiece and carried a $1.2 billion price tag.
The closure ends an experiment championed loudly by state and federal officials who staked credibility on its success.
The same constituencies that celebrated the facility's opening are now absorbing its closure as a defining outcome.
The Party notes that the platform was feeding of leopards; demobilization orders are a leopard, correctly described.

The Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party wishes to extend its sincerest institutional condolences to the officials, contractors, and constituencies who championed the facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz” and who must now absorb the news that it is shutting down permanently. The Party regrets the inconvenience. The leopards, however, performed exactly as advertised.

Operators of the Florida migrant detention center — once celebrated as a flagship of aggressive immigration enforcement and underwritten by a $1.2 billion commitment — have received formal notification to begin full demobilization. The facility, which drew enthusiastic endorsements from state and federal officials eager to associate themselves with its brand of muscular deterrence, will not be reopening. The $1.2 billion will not be returning either.

The Party wishes to observe, with characteristic composure, that the individuals who funded this experiment, who appeared at its ribbon cuttings, who cited it in campaign materials, and who assured constituents that the math was sound, are the same individuals now presiding over its closure. This is not irony. This is fulfillment of platform commitments.

As set out plainly in our literature since founding, the Party eats faces without regard for the enthusiasm with which those faces were previously offered. A flagship facility is simply a larger feeding opportunity. The Party had no plans to revise this commitment at the time of the facility’s opening, and it has no plans to revise it now.

We wish the demobilization contractors a smooth and professional wind-down. We wish the facility’s former champions clarity of reflection. The leopards are unavailable for comment but remain, as always, entirely on-message.