Florida Taps Storm Contractors to Build ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ (1)

On June 20, nearly three weeks into the Atlantic hurricane season, Florida disaster-management officials assembled a group of emergency relief contractors in Tallahassee and asked them to do something they had never done before.

Governor Ron DeSantis wanted to construct a camp in the Everglades that could hold thousands of immigrants detained in President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign. To get it built fast, Kevin Guthrie, the head of the state’s emergency-management division, asked the firms to start moving tents, trailers and toilets onto an abandoned airstrip near Miami within days.

The state-run facility, nicknamed “Alligator ...