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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said every person held at Florida's Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention facility has been issued a final order saying they must be deported.
With the conditions of his state's quickly-erected facility under scrutiny, DeSantis told reporters that each detainee had gone through a process to determine they cannot legally remain in the U.S.
"Everybody here is already on a final removal order," DeSantis said during a July 25 press conference outside the Everglades facility.
He repeated the statement in a July 29 speech to the Florida Sheriff's Association.
"The people that are going to the Alligator Alcatraz are illegally in the country. They've all already been given a final order of removal," DeSantis said. "So, if you have an order to be removed, what is the possible objection to the federal government enforcing that removal order?"
An order of removal is an official document used to deport someone. Typically, people go through immigration court before receiving one.
Situated on a 39-square-mile airstrip surrounded by wetlands, Alligator Alcatraz opened in July and, according to Florida officials, was initially designed to hold 3,000 people with room for more. The Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times identified almost 750 people housed there as of July 13. Since then, DeSantis said about 100 people had been deported and others moved to other states.
Kevin Guthrie, executive director of Florida's Division of Emergency Management, which led the facility's construction, similarly said at the July 25 press conference that everyone who comes to the facility comes from federal immigration custody with a "sheet that tells us everything about them." Their detainment at Alligator Alcatraz is not arbitrary, Guthrie said.
Final orders of removal are not public. But lawyers for at least 11 people who had been detained at Alligator Alcatraz said their clients did not have final removal orders. The attorneys spoke with PolitiFact or other media confirming details of their clients' cases.
When we asked the governor's office about DeSantis' statements, it referred PolitiFact to the Florida Division of Emergency Management. An FDEM spokesperson then referred us to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying it supplied detainees' legal status information. ICE did not respond.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a July 16 lawsuit in Florida's Southern District federal court challenging Alligator Alcatraz for violating detainees' due process rights and limiting their access to legal counsel. Attorneys representing the state countered during the hearing that the situation had evolved since the lawsuit was filed and that videoconference rooms and in-person meetings had been set up for detainees to talk to their attorneys.
Eunice Cho, the lawsuit's lead plaintiffs' counsel, called statements that Alligator Alcatraz holds only people who have final orders of removal "clearly inaccurate."
"As the declarations in our case show, there are many individuals who do not have final orders of removal held at the facility," Cho wrote in an emailed statement. "Some are already in immigration proceedings with pending immigration petitions — which mean that there is no final order at all. Others have never been charged with any immigration violation and therefore cannot have any order, final or not."
What is a final order of removal?
Under U.S. immigration law, people generally can be deported if they entered the U.S. illegally, overstayed their visas or are in the country legally but have committed certain violent crimes.
Typically, people go through immigration court. But some people can be given an order of removal without seeing an immigration judge through a fast-track deportation process known as expedited removal. That process lets immigration officers deport people who can't prove they've been in the U.S. for more than two years.
Lawyers point to clients detained in Alligator Alcatraz with no removal orders
Anna Weiser, immigration partner at Florida-based Smith & Eulo Law Firm, represents four people who have been detained at Alligator Alcatraz. As of July 29, three of them didn't have final orders of removal, she said.
Gonzalo Almanza Valdez, 31, is a U.S. legal permanent resident from Cuba. One of Weiser's clients and a plaintiff in the ACLU case, Almanza Valdez was detained during a visit with his probation officer over a past racketeering charge.
Only an immigration judge can revoke Almanza Valdez's legal permanent status. Weiser said that had not happened as of July 29. Almanza Valdez doesn't have an active immigration case against him. He was scheduled to appear before an immigration judge to seek bond on July 23, but Weiser said the clerk told her the hearing was canceled because the court had "no jurisdiction" over his case.
Weiser also represents Hari Koneru, 27, who is in the U.S. on a student visa from India and also does not have an order of removal. Koneru was recently transferred from Alligator Alcatraz to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, Weiser said.
She said she has a third client in Alligator Alcatraz without a removal order. That client did not consent to be named, she said.
Immigration lawyer Zareefa Khan represents two men held at Alligator Alcatraz. She said neither has a deportation order.
One client, whom Khan and the ACLU lawsuit identified as G.T.C., a Guatemalan national, entered the U.S. in 2019 as a minor. Khan said on July 28 that he has a pending application for asylum with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and is not currently in deportation proceedings.
Khan also represents a client she identified as R.T.F. who illegally entered the U.S. in August 2024. He also is not in deportation proceedings, Khan said.
In an interview with Orlando-area NBC affiliate WESH-TV 2 News, attorney Josephine Arroyo said one of her clients, who does not have an order of removal, was detained at Alligator Alcatraz from July 5 to 18. Arroyo said her client was a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which prevents the government from deporting immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children.
Now 36, the man arrived in the U.S. in 2001 from Mexico as a child. He was arrested and placed in ICE custody after he missed a court date for driving with a suspended license, the report said.
"One of the most interesting things that he shared with us was that he had been visited by an ICE official who confirmed to him that he did not have a deportation order," Arroyo told WESH-TV.
Immigration attorney Magdalena Cuprys told the Miami Herald that five of her seven clients detained at the facility don't have orders of removal.
Our Sources
- X, Governor DeSantis Speaks from Alligator Alcatraz, July 25, 2025
- X, Governor DeSantis Speaks at the Florida Sheriffs' Association Summer Conference, July 29, 2025
- Court Listener, CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT Case No. 1:25-cv-23182, July 16, 2025
- Congress.gov, Alien Removals and Returns: Overview and Trends, Feb. 3, 2015
- USA.gov, Understand the deportation process, Accessed July 30, 2025
- American Immigration Council, The Removal System of the United States: An Overview, Aug. 9, 2022
- PolitiFact, Ask PolitiFact: What evidence does the government need to deport green card, visa holders?, March 26, 2025
- Orlando Sentinel, Mexican tourist, brother held in Alligator Alcatraz after Orlando arrest, father says, July 23, 2025
- Miami Herald, Lawyers question legality of Alligator Alcatraz, ask federal judge to intervene, July 26, 2025
- WESH 2, Central Florida DACA recipient moved out of 'Alligator Alcatraz' before deportation flights begin, July 25, 2025
- NBC 6, Immigration court hearings inexplicably canceled for 'Alligator Alcatraz' detainees, July 28, 2025
- PBS, 'Alligator Alcatraz' detainees held without charges, barred from legal access, attorneys say, July 28, 2025
- El Pais, The nightmare of the Mexican González brothers, detained at Alligator Alcatraz for a traffic ticket: "They are violating their rights." July 23, 2025
- Miami Herald, DeSantis says all Alligator Alcatraz detainees have removal orders. Is that true?, July 30, 2025
- Email interview, Gov. Ron DeSantis media office, July 29, 2025
- Email interview, Florida Division of Emergency Management media office, July 29, 2025
- Email interview, Inga Sarda-Sorensen spokesperson at the American Civil Liberties Union, July 30, 2025
- Email interview, Zareefa Khan, immigration lawyer, Law Offices of Zareefa Khan, PA, July 28, 2025
- Phone interview, Anna Weiser, immigration partner, Smith & Eulo Law Firm, July 29, 2025
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