Questions raised as Florida seeks to build detention facilities south of I-4

Cristóbal Reyes, Orlando Sentinel on Aug 6, 2026

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ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida wants to build at least five small detention facilities south of the Interstate-4 corridor, a possible new push by the state to bolster federal mass deportations in the wake of the closure of Alligator Alcatraz and a failed effort to convert an Orange County warehouse into a large holding facility for migrants.

The request for information was put out by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and publicly released Monday. The notice seeks vendors who might want to construct such facilities.

It went largely unnoticed until it was shared Thursday morning by state House Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat, who stood alongside Central Florida immigration advocates against past attempts at building detention centers in the region.

“It immediately raised concerns, because though it doesn’t say immigrants specifically, it lists federal oversight and is asking for details that are reminiscent of the so-called Alligator Alcatraz facility that just closed,” Eskamani told The Orlando Sentinel. “This just seems like a new iteration under a different department that has never engaged in the detention of individuals.”

According to the seven-page document, the state looks to build “preferably five or more” detention centers located south of I-4, the 132-mile highway stretching from Tampa through Central Florida to Daytona Beach. Each center would house approximately 50 people each.

The document does not specify that the detention centers would house migrants for deportation. But the facilities would fall under federal oversight and have office spaces “for state or federal personnel,” it says.

The request was made on behalf of the Florida Highway Patrol, which leads the state in immigration arrests.

Responses are due Aug. 10. A highway department spokesperson did not respond to a message seeking further information.

“These are all alarm bells that the state of Florida wants to open up more detention facilities after they just spent $1.1 billion on a location in the Everglades that has yet to be reimbursed,” Eskamani said.

The move to construct new detention facilities come after a failed federal effort at repurposing a warehouse, located just south of I-4 near Lake Nona in Orange County, into a detention center.

That facility, which would have housed 1,500 detainees, was toured by U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials in January in a nationwide search for similar properties to be used as migrant detention centers. That proposal — along with dozens around the country — was reportedly abandoned following public outcry and pushback from lawmakers and advocates, some of whom nicknamed it the “Lake Nona Concentration Camp.”

The latest detention push also comes as the Trump administration ended temporary protected status, or TPS, for Haitians. Florida is home to more than half of the Haitian population living in the U.S., with the highest concentration being in South Florida.

Florida has been at the forefront of state efforts to bolster the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

Emblematic to the effort was Alligator Alcatraz, a state-constructed detention center housed at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Everglades that immediately faced backlash from human rights activists as details emerged in news reports of squalid conditions for the people housed there.

Gov. Ron DeSantis declared the facility closed at a news conference in June, boasting that 21,000 detainees were flown out of the U.S. from there in the year that it was operational. A second facility, a former state prison in Baker County re-dubbed “Deportation Depot,” remains open.

In May, DeSantis touted nearly 25,000 arrests of unauthorized immigrants by state and local law enforcement since 2025 as part of so called 287(g) agreements signed by local and state agencies to collaborate in immigration enforcement operations.