The entrance to Camp Blanding. | Google Maps
Published on June 25, 2025 at 12:42 pm
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday that Camp Blanding Joint Training Center in Clay County is among the sites being considered for an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility.
During reporter questions at a news conference in Tampa, DeSantis said the Florida Division of Emergency Management is finalizing plans to create more detention facilities across the state and that Camp Blanding is among the locations that will soon be formally announced.
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“We have some capacity there,” DeSantis said.
Camp Blanding, located near Starke, serves as the Florida National Guard training headquarters. The training center provides ranges, education facilities, simulation platforms maintenance, and other services to Florida’s National Guard and numerous federal, state, and local customers spanning the Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational spectrum.
DeSantis said Camp Blanding’s detention facility would be similar to the plans to build a detention facility, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” at an isolated Everglades airfield surrounded by mosquito-, python- and alligator-filled swamplands.
RELATED: Florida fast-tracks immigrant detention center in Everglades
“If somebody were to get out, there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, only the alligators and pythons are waiting. That’s why I like to call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier told Fox Business.
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The construction of the Everglades facility in the remote and ecologically sensitive wetland about 45 miles west of downtown Miami is alarming environmentalists, as well as human rights advocates who have slammed the plan as cruel and inhumane.
State officials say the installation is critical to support the federal government’s immigration crackdown, which has resulted in a record-high number of detentions, totaling more than 56,000 immigrants in June, the most since 2019.
This story was produced by News4Jax, a Jacksonville Today news partner.
