On Aug. 29, 2025, several widely circulated posts on social media claimed that an "uprising" occurred at the South Florida Detention Facility – nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" – the center U.S. President Donald Trump and others had toured in recent months.
A federal judge in August 2025 ordered the facility shuttered after it became the focus of a human and environmental-rights campaign.
The claim that an "uprising" took place began to spread just days before a federal court scheduled a hearing regarding the legal rights of the facility's detainees. The claim that an "uprising" took place made its way across multiple platforms, including Facebook (archived), Reddit (archived) and X (archived). One Facebook post (archived) received more than 50,000 reactions, as of this writing.
The claim originated with the Florida Spanish-language TV channel, Univision Miami's Noticias 23, before The Guardian (archived) and other outlets picked it up. According to the story (archived) by Noticias 23 from Aug. 28, 2025, at least three detainees called the station over the phone, claiming that guards injured at least four and used tear gas on the detainees.
Stephanie Hartman, spokesperson for the Florida Division of Emergency Management (which oversees "Alligator Alcatraz"), claimed in an email to Snopes that "reports of an uprising are manufactured. Detainees are given clean, safe living conditions and guards are properly trained on all state and federal protocols."
This account contradicts those whose alleged calls Noticias 23 aired on TV. In the video of the TV segment, one alleged detainee said that many detainees were "bleeding" and that a helicopter was circling overhead. In another reported call, a fire alarm is audible in the background as the alleged detainee spoke.
One alleged detainee said in one of the aired phone calls (translation via Google translate):
People started screaming because a relative had died, and they started shouting for freedom. At that moment, a prison team came in and started beating everyone. Right now, it's unrest, and well, we have the helicopter overhead. Everyone here has been beaten up, many people have bled, brother, tear gas. We are immigrants, we are not criminals, we are not murderers.
Snopes was unable to independently confirm these details, but, to summarize, Noticias 23 claimed to have received calls from at least three people who identified themselves as detainees at Florida's "Alligator Alcatraz" and reported an uprising that resulted in the detention center's guards beating detainees. The Florida Division of Emergency Management denied these claims.
Noelle Damico, director of social justice at the Workers Circle, told The Guardian: "People held inside the facility were on hunger strike for more than 14 days, despite the [Gov. Ron ] DeSantis administration denying it. What they apparently did was ship people who were hunger striking out to other facilities, Krome [in Miami] to Texas etc, to break it up ... [An uprising] would not surprise me given the abuses that people have experienced."