DeSantis Hit For Awarding Contracts To Favored Contractors

In just days, a migrant detention camp Florida officials have nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz” sprang up in the mosquito-infested Everglades, ready in time for President Donald Trump’s visit.

Under Florida law, DeSantis can declare 60-day states of emergency and renew them indefinitely as long as he deems an emergency exists. I Photo: Governor Ron DeSantis Facebook

The rapid construction was enabled by emergency rules allowing Gov. Ron DeSantis to bypass state laws, building codes, and competitive bidding to allocate millions from a fund he solely controls, Jeffrey Schweers reported for the Orlando Sentinel.

DeSantis has long used this disaster pipeline to direct billions to politically connected contractors.

Some of those same companies were tapped again this summer to build the Everglades detention facility. “It’s not Alligator Alcatraz. It’s Gator Grift,” said Rep. Fentrice Driskell of Tampa, the Democratic leader in the Florida House.

The emergency rules gave DeSantis authority to commandeer a Miami-Dade County airport and deploy more than a dozen contractors to construct a tent city now costing taxpayers roughly $240 million, with projected annual operating costs of $450 million.

Under Florida law, DeSantis can declare 60-day states of emergency and renew them indefinitely as long as he deems an emergency exists.

While these powers were originally used for hurricanes and other natural disasters, since 2023 he has expanded their use to include immigration crackdowns, such as flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard and California, deploying Florida forces to the Texas border, intercepting boats off the Florida coast, and even evacuating residents from Haiti and Israel.