A Florida Highway Patrol officer looks on as protesters gather to demand the closure of the immigrant detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz" at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, on July 22, 2025. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP)
Mexico City: The United States is holding 30 Mexicans in a migrant detention center dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," despite Mexico's request for their repatriation, President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday.
The camp, surrounded by alligator-filled swamps in the Florida Everglades, is a new feature of the harsh anti-immigration policies introduced by US President Donald Trump that have fanned diplomatic tensions with Mexico.
Sheinbaum said that consular assistance was being provided to migrants at the center, which a Mexican diplomat has visited several times.
"A note was sent... asking that any Mexicans who might enter this detention center be repatriated immediately," she said at her morning news conference.
Trump campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants.
When touring "Alligator Alcatraz" in July, he boasted about the harsh conditions and joked that the reptilian predators would serve as guards.
More than 350 Mexicans have been detained in US immigration raids since Trump returned to office in January, according to the most recent update from the Mexican government, which has criticized the tough treatment.
