Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced the opening of “Deportation Depot,” a second holding pen for illegal immigrants leaving the U.S.
DeSantis had scored another victory earlier that day when a federal judge ruled that “Alligator Alcatraz” may continue operating, despite another judge’s attempt to shut it down, Politico reported.
“We’re not only doing Alligator Alcatraz, we’ve now opened the Deportation Depot up in Northeast Florida, and we’re working on opening a ‘Panhandle Pokey,’” DeSantis told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity.
Tonight, I joined Sean Hannity on Fox News. pic.twitter.com/uhO9ZxNfQA
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) September 5, 2025
Housed within an obsolete prison (the Baker Correctional Institution), Deportation Depot can hold up to 1,500 detainees at a time, according to Fox News.
As of Friday, 117 detainees have already moved in to the Sanderson, Florida, facility.
“The Baker County facility will now be a great supplement to Alligator Alcatraz,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said. “We’ll use as many of the detention spaces as we can. We want to fill them up.
“We want deliver on this mission. The Baker County site was actually a pre-existing state jail that was no longer in use. So it’s already retrofitted out to hold a lot of people. We’ll fill it up quickly, and we’ll put it to good use,” Uthmeier said.
Should more states work with the federal government to address illegal immigration, like Florida has done?
The new facility likely won’t face the same backlash Alligator Alcatraz did, Uthmeier said.
In August, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams tried to stop operations at Alligator Alcatraz, citing environmental concerns from environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe.
Williams ordered that the facility should not expand, should not accept any more detainees, and that its present inmates should be transferred to other facilities, among other restrictive instructions.
But in Atlanta on Thursday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paused Williams’ order in a 2-1 decision.
🚨🚨🚨HUGE win for Trump Administration via Florida with 11th Cir. staying injunction ordering shut down of Alligator Alcatraz. 1/ pic.twitter.com/Odcd97wc64
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) September 4, 2025
“It is entirely unclear to us, moreover, how the district court concluded that it could order the proactive dismantling of the Facility by way of a mandatory preliminary injunction,” wrote Judge Barbara Lagoa, whom DeSantis appointed to the Florida Supreme Court in 2019, according to Politico.
But DeSantis had anticipated the appeals court victory, vowing in August to fight and overcome Williams’ order.
“[Alligator Alcatraz] was huge to help expand the mission and fulfill the mission for President Trump to increase deportations,” DeSantis told Hannity on Thursday. “We did have a leftist judge, and the media said, ‘Oh, it’s closed; they’re done,’ and I said, first of all, it never closed, we have illegals there, the deportations were continuing.
“But I said the mission will continue; we’re going to win. So, predictably, we did, and so they have egg on their face yet again,” DeSantis said.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
