Mexico is warning its citizens not to travel to Florida after reports emerged that Mexican nationals are being detained without legal process inside Florida’s remote swamp-based detention center, known as Alligator Alcatraz.
Mexican Consul Juan Sabines issued the travel warning on July 23, stating: “Take extreme precautions when you come to Florida.” The consulate warned Mexican travelers, even those on valid visas, could be arrested during traffic stops and sent to the Everglades-based facility with no access to attorneys or due process.
“They will detain you here for anything,” Sabines said.
Sabines said Mexicans visiting the state need to worry about “basic things” such as:
- Renting cars from legitimate locations,
- Driving with a license, and
- Carrying documentation at all times
U.S. law requires all non-U.S. citizens aged 18 and over to carry documentation of their legal status in the United States at all times, including their most recent I-94 Arrival/Departure Record and other status-specific documents like I-20s or I-797s. Failure to comply can result in fines or imprisonment.
The diplomatic alert followed confirmation that at least 14 Mexican nationals are currently detained inside the state-run detention camp, including a pair of brothers held for weeks after being pulled over near Orlando. The Mexican government is demanding their repatriation to Mexico.
Yet just this past April, Mexico jailed two U.S. citizens from Michigan in a maximum-security facility over a timeshare dispute for over a month. Numbers are not published by Mexico or Washington as to the number of American citizens currently jailed or imprisoned in Mexico.
Alligator Alcatraz sits on 39 square miles of swamp inside Big Cypress National Preserve. The tent-based compound, constructed in July 2025, was designed to hold up to 5,000 illegals with natural escape deterrents: alligators and Burmese pythons.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is now demanding the immediate repatriation of detained Mexican citizens, stating that Florida’s facility violates basic human rights.
The Mexican government is weighing a formal nationwide advisory against traveling to Florida, citing widespread abuse of state enforcement powers, lack of oversight, and denial of consular access. Consul Sabines added that because Alligator Alcatraz is run by the state, immigration detainees there do not receive the same federal legal protections typically afforded in ICE or DHS custody.
Gov. DeSantis has defended the facility, calling it a “deterrent.” Deportation flights have already begun. According to official statements, over 100 illegals have already been flown out of the country, with more flights planned from the on-site runway.
CNN interviewed detainees who claim that being at Alligator Alcatraz is “a type of torture.”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, (D-FL), called the conditions at the facility “disturbing and vile.” The Trump Department of Justice has filed lawsuits to prevent the opening and operation of the facility from being slowed down by bad faith left-wing litigation.
“The Department of Justice has defended President Trump’s immigration agenda in court since day one and we are proud to protect ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ from baseless, politically motivated legal schemes,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi.
Trump is also trying to keep his campaign promises to fundamentally change America’s immigration system, and enact mass deportations. The administration’s legal challenge to ‘birthright citizenship’ where foreign nationals giving birth in America confer U.S. citizenship upon their children, faced a setback this week as an Appeals Court denied the administration’s re-interpretation of the automatic citizenship process for children born in America. Since 1898, the courts have said children born in U.S. jurisdiction are citizens.
Estimates say around 250,000 children are born to parents who are illegally in the United States, and who, in the past, would have been automatically considered U.S. citizens.
As of 2025, Florida’s population is 23 million, the nation’s third most populous state. There are an estimated 1 million illegal immigrants in Florida, and nationwide estimates range between 11-18 million. There are roughly 3.7 million pending cases in U.S. immigration courts, in front of the nation’s 750 immigration judges.
Illegal immigrants are estimated to cost the American government an estimated net negative $68,000 per person.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated the total net cost of illegal immigration at over $150 billion in early 2023.
President Trump included funding in the “Big Beautiful Bill” for an additional 250 Immigration Judges, though estimates indicate that would reduce the courts’ current backlog by the end of Trump’s four year term in 2029.
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