TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Barely seven weeks after Florida dismantled its embattled Everglades detention camp, the agency overseeing the state's troopers is already sounding out the construction industry about a fresh round of smaller holding sites, according to a procurement notice first surfaced by The Space Coast Rocket.
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles — parent agency to the Highway Patrol — uploaded a formal request for information, numbered FLHSMV-RFI-027-27, to the state's vendor marketplace on Aug. 3, giving contractors until 2 p.m. on Aug. 10 to respond. Officials describe the posting as pure fact-finding, carrying no obligation to build anything. Yet the specifications read like an actual blueprint: a network of contractor-run facilities capped at roughly 50 adult detainees apiece, operating continuously under federal supervision, according to Central Florida Public Media. Planners want a minimum of five locations south of the Interstate 4 corridor, plus recommendations on economical building materials, hardened doors, perimeter security fencing, and dedicated workspace for federal case personnel.
The filing pushes further than location and design. It directs bidders to explain how facilities built with federal grant dollars could adapt if usage restrictions change down the line, and it steers the state toward buying property outright rather than renting it — a detail first flagged by The Space Coast Rocket. Every response has to route through the agency's purchasing bureau; the department will not accept anything submitted on paper.
A Pricier Predecessor
Neither the state nor the paperwork has confirmed these smaller sites are meant to hold immigration detainees — though the Highway Patrol has become Florida's primary law-enforcement partner assisting federal immigration agents, per Central Florida Public Media. Florida's most recent large-scale detention build did not come cheap or last long. Nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz," the Everglades facility opened on a converted airstrip last summer, with officials pegging capacity around 3,000 people, though some projections climbed as high as 5,000. A federal judge eventually ordered it wound down, and the site went dark in June. WFTV has reported the project's total price tag exceeded $608 million, with no promise of federal reimbursement. A second, smaller facility carved out of a shuttered prison near Lake City — branded "Deportation Depot" — added somewhere between roughly 1,300 and 1,500 additional beds. Separately, the American Civil Liberties Union has calculated that keeping the Everglades camp running cost close to $450 million a year — an annual figure that sits alongside, rather than conflicts with, the total build-and-operate sum WFTV cited.
Arriving as TPS Protections Lapse
The new solicitation landed the same week Temporary Protected Status expired for roughly 350,000 Haitian nationals nationwide — an estimated 150,000 to 158,000 of them living in Florida — after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to end the program and a federal judge signed the final order this week. The Department of Homeland Security has indicated that anyone losing that protection without another pending form of legal relief now faces arrest and removal. Separately, figures from the state's immigration enforcement board, cited by WFTV, show law enforcement statewide crossed paths with more than 30,000 people suspected of lacking legal status over the past year, with the Highway Patrol's parent agency involved in roughly a third of those cases.
Skeptics Want the State to Come Clean
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat who has long criticized Florida's detention buildup, brought the document into public view this week. "I'm sure this is them prepared to detain immigrants who have lost TPS status," she wrote, according to Central Florida Public Media. She has also said separately that nothing so far suggests Washington intends to pick up the tab. Thomas Kennedy of the Florida Immigrant Coalition voiced similar unease after spotting the posting online, telling WFTV plainly, "People should know what's happening." He further argued that private contractors stand to profit substantially from detention work. Ericka Gómez-Tejeda, who coordinates the Immigrants Are Welcome Here coalition in Orange County, said her group rejects any expansion of detention capacity — though its central demand is simply that the state explain its intentions rather than leave residents guessing.
An Uncertain Next Step
Questions directed at the governor's office were routed to the highway safety agency, which had offered no public comment on the request as of this week. Because the posting is technically just an information-gathering exercise, Florida isn't bound to build a single facility — but the granular detail in its siting and design criteria hints that a formal construction bid could follow once the response window closes.
