Alaska has joked about setting up a “Bear Alcatraz” to help the Trump administration detain more illegal migrants — as the White House urged Republican states to work with the feds to build similar detention facilities across the country.
The state quipped about the plan just days after Florida opened a massive new immigration detention center — dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” — to help house hundreds of illegal migrants.
White House official Stephen Miller on Fox News talking about Alaska opening a similar facility to alligator Alcatraz. Fox News“We don’t have alligators, but we have lots of bears,” the state of Alaska said in a statement to Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
However, the Last Frontier — which President Trump won in the 2024 election with 55% of the vote — said there were no earnest plans currently in place for “an Alaska version of Alligator Alcatraz.”
It came as White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller called on the governors of GOP states to offer up similar spaces to help the Trump administration crack down on illegal immigration.
“Every governor of a red state, if you are watching tonight: Pick up the phone, call DHS, work with us to build facilities in your state so we can get the illegals and criminals out,” he told the network.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier kickstarted the push last month when he proposed building a new detention center — surrounded by alligators and pythons — on a 39-square-mile plot of land.
Workers install a sign reading “Alligator Alcatraz” at the entrance to a new migrant detention facility at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility, as large fencing panels are unloaded from a nearby flatbed, Thursday, July 3, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. AP
President Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem tour a migrant detention center, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, on July 1, 2025. AFP via Getty Images“The government tasked state leaders to identify places for new temporary detention facilities,” the attorney general said at the time.
“I think this is the best one. As I call it, Alligator Alcatraz.”
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“Alligator Alcatraz, we’re ready to go,” he added.
