BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the Camp Blanding Joint Training Center near Starke could house as many as 2,000 illegal immigrants, making it one of the largest such facilities in the U.S.
Now, the Adams County Detention Center in Natchez, Mississippi, holds approximately 2,000 detainees. However, Charlton County, Georgia, is in the process of expanding the Folkston ICE Processing Center with a projected capacity of 3,000. That facility is 75 miles north of Camp Blanding. In addition, Florida’s newest immigrant detention center could equal the capacity of the Charlton County facility.
Last week, DeSantis joined President Donald Trump for the opening of a detention center 50 miles west of Miami dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Both Trump and DeSantis emphasized the facility’s remoteness, situated in a swampy area surrounded by reptiles. The new center was built in eight days and features more than 200 security cameras, over 28,000 feet of barbed wire and 400 security personnel. Officials said the South Florida center could hold 3,000 detainees.
The governor said the state is now selecting vendors for the Camp Blanding expansion.
He added that because Florida is the only state that requires all law enforcement to participate in immigration enforcement, the Sunshine State accounts for between 15% and 20% of daily immigration arrests.
The projected capacity of the Camp Blanding detention center would be lower than the combined capacities of Florida State Prison and Union Correctional Institution, which is 2,926.
Blanding’s history as a detention site reaches back to 1942, when the camp served as a German prisoner of war camp.
One thousand POWs were housed within the post, and its leadership supervised an additional 3,000 German POWs in branch camps throughout Florida.
