Emails show DeSantis administration blindsided county officials with plans for 'Alligator Alcatraz'

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration left many local officials in the dark about the immigration detention center that rose from an isolated airstrip in the Everglades, emails obtained by The Associated Press show, while relying on an executive order to seize the land, hire contractors and bypass laws and regulations.

The emails show that local officials in southwest Florida were still trying to chase down a “rumor” about the sprawling “Alligator Alcatraz” facility planned for their county while state officials were already on the ground and sending vendors through the gates to coordinate construction of the detention center, which was designed to house thousands of migrants and went up in a matter of days.

“Not cool!” one local official told the state agency director spearheading the construction.

The 100-plus emails dated June 21 to July 1, obtained through a public records request, underscore the breakneck speed at which the governor's team built the facility and the extent to which local officials were blindsided by the plans for the compound of makeshift tents and trailers in Collier County, a wealthy, majority-Republican corner of the state that's home to white-sand beaches and the western stretch of the Everglades.

The executive order, originally signed by the Republican governor in 2023 and extended since then, accelerated the project, allowing the state to seize county-owned land and evade rules in what critics have called an abuse of power. The order granted the state sweeping authority to suspend “any statute, rule or order” seen as slowing the response to the immigration “emergency.”

A representative for DeSantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Known as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, the airstrip is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of downtown Miami. It is located within Collier County but is owned and managed by neighboring Miami-Dade County. The AP asked for similar records from Miami-Dade County, where officials said they are still processing the request.

To DeSantis and other state officials, building the facility in the remote Everglades and naming it after a notorious federal prison were meant as deterrents. It’s another sign of how President Donald Trump's administration and his allies are relying on scare tactics to pressure people who are in the country illegally to leave.

Collier County Commissioner Rick LoCastro apparently first heard about the proposal after a concerned resident in another county sent him an email on June 21.

“A citizen is asking about a proposed ‘detention center’ in the Everglades?” LoCastro wrote to County Manager Amy Patterson and other staff. “Never heard of that … Am I missing something?”

“I am unaware of any land use petitions that are proposing a detention center in the Everglades. I’ll check with my intake team, but I don’t believe any such proposal has been received by Zoning,” replied the county's planning and zoning director, Michael Bosi.

Environmental groups have since filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that the state illegally bypassed federal and state laws and county zoning rules in building the facility. The complaint alleges that the detention center went up "without legislative authority, environmental review or compliance with local land use requirements.”

In fact, LoCastro was included on a June 21 email from state officials announcing their intention to buy the airfield. LoCastro sits on the county's governing board but does not lead it, and his district does not include the airstrip. He forwarded the message to the county attorney, saying “Not sure why they would send this to me?”

In the email, Kevin Guthrie, the head of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which built the detention center, said the state intended to “work collaboratively” with the counties. The message referenced the executive order on illegal immigration, but it did not specify how the state wanted to use the site, other than for “future emergency response, aviation logistics, and staging operations.”

The next day, Collier County's emergency management director, Dan Summers, wrote up a briefing for the county manager and other local officials, including some notes about the “rumor” he had heard about plans for an immigration detention facility at the airfield.

Summers knew the place well, he said, after doing a detailed site survey a few years ago.

“The infrastructure is — well, nothing much but a few equipment barns and a mobile home office … (wet and mosquito-infested)," Summers wrote.

FDEM told Summers that while the agency had surveyed the airstrip, “NO mobilization or action plans are being executed at this time” and all activity was “investigatory," Summers wrote.

By June 23, Summers was racing to prepare a presentation for a meeting of the Board of County Commissioners the next day. He shot off an email to FDEM Director Kevin Guthrie seeking confirmation of basic facts about the airfield and the plans for the detention facility, which Summers understood to be “conceptual” and in “discussion or investigatory stages only.”

“Is it in the plans or is there an actual operation set to open?” Summers asked. “Rumor is operational today… ???”

In fact, the agency was already “on site with our vendors coordinating the construction of the site," FDEM bureau chief Ian Guidicelli responded.

“Not cool! That’s not what was relayed to me last week or over the weekend,” Summers responded, adding that he would have “egg on my face” with the Collier County Sheriff's Office and Board of County Commissioners. "It’s a Collier County site. I am on your team, how about the courtesy of some coordination?”

On the evening of June 23, FDEM officially notified Miami-Dade County it was seizing the county-owned land to build the detention center, under emergency powers granted by the executive order.

Plans for the facility sparked concerns among first responders in Collier County, who questioned which agency would be responsible if an emergency should strike the site.

Discussions on the issue grew tense at times. Local Fire Chief Chris Wolfe wrote to the county's chief of emergency medical services and other officials on June 25: "I am not attempting to argue with you, more simply seeking how we are going to prepare for this that is clearly within the jurisdiction of Collier County."

Summers, the emergency management director, repeatedly reached out to FDEM for guidance, trying to “eliminate some of the confusion” around the site.

As he and other county officials waited for details from Tallahassee, they turned to local news outlets for information, sharing links to stories among themselves.

“Keep them coming,” Summers wrote to county Communications Director John Mullins in response to one news article, “since its crickets from Tally at this point.”

Hoping to manage any blowback to the county's tourism industry, local officials kept close tabs on media coverage of the facility, watching as the news spread rapidly from local newspapers in southwest Florida to national outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times and international news sites as far away as Great Britain, Germany and Switzerland.

As questions from reporters and complaints from concerned residents streamed in, local officials lined up legal documentation to show the airfield was not their responsibility.

In an email chain labeled, “Not our circus, not our monkeys...,” County Attorney Jeffrey Klatzkow wrote to the county manager, “My view is we have no interest in this airport parcel, which was acquired by eminent domain by Dade County in 1968.”

Meanwhile, construction at the site plowed ahead, with trucks arriving around the clock carrying portable toilets, asphalt and construction materials. Among the companies that snagged multimillion dollar contracts for the work were those whose owners donated generously to political committees supporting DeSantis and other Republicans.

On July 1, just 10 days after Collier County first got wind of the plans, the state officially opened the facility, welcoming DeSantis, Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other state and federal officials for a tour.

A county emergency management staffer fired off an email to Summers, asking to be included on any site visit to the facility.

“Absolutely,” Summers replied. “After the President’s visit and some of the chaos on-site settles-in, we will get you all down there…”

Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Workers sit alongside trailers as work progresses on a new migrant detention center dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility in the Florida Everglades, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Work progressed on a new migrant detention facility dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility in the Florida Everglades, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Workers install a sign reading "Alligator Alcatraz" at the entrance to a new migrant detention facility at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility, Thursday, July 3, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)