The entrance to the state-managed immigration detention center dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, located at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Florida Everglades on August 03, 2025 in Ochopee, Florida.
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A new controversy involving the immigration detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz" is raising questions about conditions inside the facility. This time, reports indicate that officers stationed there have been wearing patches on their uniforms.
Reported by the Miami Herald, a guard identified as "Officer Martinez" told an activist that he had the patches produced and shared them with other officers working at the facility. The patch features a skeleton resembling the Grim Reaper holding a scythe. The figure is shown riding a large alligator skull with its jaws open, alongside the words "Alligator Alcatraz" and "You Can't Hide."
"He told me he made the patches and that he gives them to people, including other guards," Courtney Prokopas, 41, an activist with Witness at the Border, a volunteer advocacy group that organizes demonstrations outside immigration detention centers across the U.S., told the Miami Herald.
Court Filings Show Florida Taxpayers Could Be Left Covering $1.5B 'Alligator Alcatraz' ProjectRead more Court Filings Show Florida Taxpayers Could Be Left Covering $1.5B 'Alligator Alcatraz' ProjectProkopas said the officer handed her the patch while he was leaving the facility on March 3. During the exchange, Martinez told her he had just been fired after a physical confrontation with another officer.
Clearly upset, Martinez told Prokopas that he previously worked for the Bexar County Sheriff's Office in Texas, where he had also just been discharged from Critical Response Strategies after a physical altercation with another guard.
"He told me to keep the patch. I told him 'No, it's OK,' " Prokopas said. "He insisted and said he had plenty."
To determine whether guards inside the facility were actually wearing the patch, the Miami Herald contacted a detainee who had recently been released. During a phone interview, he said he recognized the emblem immediately, even before being shown an image of it.
"What I saw was 'Alligator Alcatraz,' a skeleton dressed in black holding a hatchet and a crocodile underneath," said Lewis Ortigoza, who had previously been detained at the facility. "It looked like something demonic."
When reporters later reached a man who identified himself as Officer Martinez by phone, the call ended shortly after they mentioned they were calling about the altercation and the patches.
Mike King, an emergency management consultant working at the Florida detention facility through Critical Response Strategies, told the outlet the guard's full name is Steven Martinez, adding that he had never seen the patch and that it was not part of the official uniform.
"I can confirm that he and another officer were both demobilized following an altercation between the two," King said.
Ever since opening its doors in the summer, Alligator Alcatraz has faced resistance from the public, human rights organizations, migrant advocates and environmental groups.
Multiple reports of human rights violations and alleged abuses against migrants dominated headlines shortly after its opening, prompting a federal judge to order its closure in August, despite the federal government having signed more than $245 million in contracts to build and operate the facility.
Earlier this week, court filings revealed that Florida taxpayers could ultimately be responsible for up to $1.5 billion spent on the facility after federal reimbursement funds expected by the state failed to materialize.
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Tags: Alligator alcatraz, Florida, Immigration, ICE, Dhs, Trump administration
