The "Alligator Alcatraz" immigrant detention center, located in the Florida Everglades, is up and running and another site will follow at Camp Blanding, Florida National Guard training headquarters, before the month is over, state Attorney General James Uthmeier, who has played a key role in opening the detention centers, told Newsmax.
"We want to lead and set the example for other states," Uthmeier, who was appointed as attorney general to replace now-Sen. Ashley Moody, said Tuesday on "Rob Schmitt Tonight."
"We've got to step up," Uthmeier said. "We've got to help the president deliver on his promise to shut down the border for once and for all, and deport people back where they came from. So we're all in. We're going to help out."
Meanwhile, several environmental groups have filed lawsuits to stop the construction of the Everglades facility, which President Donald Trump, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and other officials toured with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday.
Uthmeier told Newsmax that the legal actions are "sham lawsuits."
"We are not touching the Everglades," he said. "This is a sustainable, temporary little detention facility, 39 square miles, essentially, of concrete. It's an old abandoned airport, 11,000-foot runway, which is great for big planes to land and deport people out."
The idea for the facility came from Trump's original call to reopen Alcatraz, the infamous prison surrounded by the San Francisco Bay, to detain immigrants, Uthmeier said.
Trump posted on Tuesday that rebuilding the California island prison is still in the works.
"Conceptual work started six months ago, and various prison development firms are looking at doing it with us," Trump wrote. "Still a little early, but lots of promise!"
Uthmeier said he thinks the California project is a "good idea."
"I don't know if that can be done," he said. "We've always been trying to think, what could we do with this unique piece of property? It is its own natural Alcatraz, completely surrounded by the Everglades. If you get out, there's nowhere to go, nowhere to hide."
Meanwhile, Trump also this week said he would "take a look at" potentially arresting former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Uthmeier said he agrees that he should be investigated for his actions while serving under former President Joe Biden.
"The secretary's behavior enrages me," he said. "They abdicated responsibility. They chose not to enforce the law. They opened up the border, and people have died as a result. In the last few months alone, I have been shocked as attorney general at the people we've pulled off the streets, from MS-13 gang members to traffickers, people who have sexually abused people in the most cruel ways, illegal aliens that never should have been here."
Uthmeier continued, saying, "Thank God President Trump is enforcing the law. We are getting our country back, and every one of these officials who abdicated responsibility and intentionally put American lives in danger should most definitely be investigated."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.