While most Americans have seen headlines about “Alligator Alcatraz”— a migrant detention center built by the State of Florida in the Everglades — many are unaware that it is surrounded by a national park.
Though it sits six miles north of Everglades National Park, Alligator Alcatraz is entirely surrounded by the Big Cypress National Preserve. The Big Cypress National Preserve was established in 1974, born out of the momentum achieved by an effort to defeat a massive jetport in the Everglades.
All that remains of that jetport project is a single, 10,500 foot airstrip—the same location where the new migrant detention center has been built.
The Jetport Project
The construction of the airstrip in 1968 was the first step in a much larger project. That single runway, part of an initial training facility, would be expanded by the Dade County Port Authority into a $200 million jetport with the facilities to handle 50 million passengers a year. Its huge concrete footprint would cover 39 square miles — larger than the four biggest airports in the country combined. It would employ 100,000 people, who would be shuttled to the jetport by a 1000 foot wide transportation corridor. It would be a kingdom of concrete, ruled by the lords of the air.
What was readily apparent — and would raise the hackles of conservationists — was the devastating effect the jetport would have on the greater Everglades ecosystem. The chosen project site was in the Big Cypress Swamp, just six miles north of the border of Everglades National Park. Placed in the middle of the broader watershed, the jetport would severely impact the meandering sheet flow of water from Lake Okeechobee that kept the Everglades alive.
Already, the Everglades were suffering from diversions and drainages that interrupted the natural flow of water. Roads such as the Tamiami Trail (which the jetport would connect to) acted as de facto dams, choking out the lower wetlands of the national park. The roadways and concrete required by such a massive project would behave the same way, posing an existential threat to Everglades National Park.
Additionally, the jetport represented a serious pollution problem. Air would be polluted by exhaust, water by sewage and fuel spills, and the wetland wilderness of the national park by the sound of jets roaring overhead. Rare and endangered birds would be struck by aircraft and spooked from their nesting grounds. .
Despite this, Everglades Park Superintendent John Rafferty felt he had little power to oppose the project. All he felt he could do was politely ask the Dade County Port Authority to build the jetport as far away from the park as possible.
Fortunately, a colleague to the north took the matter into his own hands. In the 1960s, the Big Cypress Swamp was privately owned and contained in a water conservation area of the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control District. When construction began on the six-airstrip training facility, Flood Control District chairman Robert Padrick raised the alarm. He wrote to more than a hundred conservationists, igniting an opposition that would soon gain national attention.
Defending the Big Cypress Swamp
In response to Robert Padrick’s warnings, conservationists organized at both the local and national level. In early 1969, longtime Everglades advocate Marjory Stoneman Douglas founded Friends of the Everglades to oppose the jetport. National organizations like the National Parks Association (now NPCA) and National Audubon Society banded together to form the Everglades Coalition.
Together, these organizations lobbied decision makers on behalf of Everglades National Park and the broader ecosystem. 24,000 letters were sent to Washington, D.C., and Tallahassee from across the country, urging that the project be canceled. National publications like the New York Times covered the story, raising awareness outside of Florida.
Though the National Environmental Policy Act wouldn’t be passed for another year, the Everglades Coalition demanded a study of how the jetport would affect the ecosystem. The Dade County Port Authority contended that the project (at least the initial training runways) would have no negative impact on the environment. As a result of conservationist pressure, three task forces studied the issue and came to the same conclusion, though with varying degrees of intensity: the construction of the jetport would negatively affect the Everglades.
The most damning study was led by Luna B. Leopold, a hydrologist and geomorphologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Affirming all points previously made by conservationists, Leopold issued a dark prophecy for a future in which the jetport was constructed: “Economic and social pressures for further development… will mount rapidly, the one encouraging the other.” Development wouldn’t stop with the airport. Homes would need to be built, services provided, and roads constructed to connect it all—the jetport would represent the start of the wholescale paving over of the Big Cypress Swamp.
Though some have criticized the report for its severity and labeled it a “partisan” document from within the Department of the Interior, it confirmed what conservationists already knew. The jetport and the Everglades ecosystem were incompatible. Thanks to the national attention brought by the Everglades Coalition and national news, the public was largely in support of protecting the swamp—including the President of the United States.
In late 1969, Richard Nixon directed the Secretaries of the Interior and Transportation to find a solution. In January of 1970, the Everglades Pact was signed by many of the involved parties, ending the threat of a jetport. The Pact banned new construction at the jetport. The single airstrip already constructed was allowed to remain in use until a replacement site was found. The area around the airstrip was to be monitored for environmental impact.
Jetport to National Preserve to Alligator Alcatraz
Building off the momentum that had defeated the jetport, the Everglades Coalition recognized that something needed to be done to permanently safeguard the broader Everglades ecosystem from future development. Through continued efforts, the Big Cypress National Preserve was established as a new unit in the national park system in 1974.
Despite these victories, Miami-Dade county continued to hold title to the airstrip, which became an inholding in the Big Cypress preserve. In 2025, the State of Florida announced and quickly built the Alligator Alcatraz facility at the former site of the Everglades jetport.
Like in the 1960s, conservationists have voiced strong opposition to the project. On June 27, 2025, Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed lawsuits against the state of Florida, asserting that the necessary environmental review and public comment periods were bypassed to fast track the project. Time will tell if conservationists will once again see victory in the Florida Everglades.
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