Lauren Biss, deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said July 4 that a new detention facility in the Florida Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz has opened and will be able to house up to 5,000 beds.

Biss said the facility, which she described as “isolated and surrounded by dangerous wildlife and unforgiving terrain,” was opened by “Secretary Noem” and President Donald J. Trump and that it will be “largely funded by FEMA's shelter and services program.”

The announcement framed the site as a federal response to detaining what Biss called the “worst of the worst,” listing “violent criminals, gang members, child abusers, and terrorists.” “Alligator Alcatraz is the perfect location to house the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” she said.

Biss said there is only one road leading into the site and characterized deportation flights as “the only way out for illegal aliens.” She also asserted that FEMA’s shelter and services program has previously been used to house noncitizens, saying it had been used by the Biden administration “to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to house illegal aliens, including Lake and Riley's killer.” Those characterizations were presented by Biss in the statement and are reported here as her remarks.

The statement was delivered as a brief weekly message from DHS and closed with Biss offering holiday remarks: “God bless and happy Independence Day.”

The announcement in the statement describes the facility’s capacity and funding and characterizes the detainee population; it does not include operational details such as the facility’s operator, exact funding agreements, start of operations, legal authority for detention, or any formal procurement or interagency memoranda. Those details were not specified in the statement and are not asserted here.