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Work progresses on a new migrant detention facility dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility in the Florida Everglades, July 4, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. (AP)
As Florida moved quickly to build an immigration detention facility in the Everglades, some critics likened the site to a concentration camp.
Some TikTok videos attempted to lend credence to the analogy: Alligator Alcatraz, they said, is getting incinerators.
"Just in case you don’t know what’s going on, a girl on TikTok came on here and said that one of her neighbors received a government contract asking them to install a bunch of incinerators at Alligator Alcatraz," a woman said in a July 1 TikTok post that had received 5.1 million views as of July 9. "They are installing incinerators at Alligator Alcatraz."
Four days later, the TikTok video creator retracted her claim in another post saying, "as of right now that is not true, they are not installing the incinerators at Alligator Alcatraz."
But the original video had already been repeated, including in a July 3 TikTok video that added background footage of metal containers with flame design cut-outs on them. During World War II, Nazi Germany used crematoriums to incinerate the remains of millions of interned Jewish people it killed in gas chamber executions at internment camps.
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Although civil rights and immigration advocates have called Alligator Alcatraz’s living conditions inhumane, we found no factual news reports, documents or government statements confirming plans to install incinerators. Run by the Florida Division of Emergency Management with some collaboration from the Department of Homeland Security, Alligator Alcatraz received its first group of immigrant detainees July 3.
PolitiFact received no response from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office or the Florida Division of Emergency Management about the claim.
DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin called the claim "beyond disgusting."
"From comparisons to the modern-day Nazi gestapo to implying incinerators are being used at Alligator Alcatraz for nefarious purposes, the vilification of ICE must stop," McLaughlin said in an emailed statement to PolitiFact.
Incinerators are commonly used across different industries
The videos’ account about someone’s cousin being offered a contract to install incinerators appears to have originated with a July 1 TikTok post in which a woman wrote that her neighbor told her that "his cousin was offered a contracting job to install a ‘ton’ of incinerators into Alligator Alcatraz."
The woman’s post said she believed this to be merely rumor until hearing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on July 1.
We did not find any comments from Leavitt about Alligator Alcatraz that day, though she did speak about the facility on June 30, a day before President Donald Trump was set to visit the facility, without mentioning incinerators.
During Trump’s July 1 visit, he participated in a roundtable discussion with DeSantis and Kevin Guthrie, Florida Division of Emergency Management executive director.
Guthrie told the group that more than 13 vendors were working at the facility. The Miami Herald published nine of the contractors’ names; none specializes in incineration services. The Miami Herald reported that some of the companies are helping with site preparation and engineering, while others provide security, sanitation and food.
A Florida’s 37-page immigration enforcement plan proposal makes no mention of "incinerators", a "crematorium", "cremation chamber", or "cremating facility" to be installed at the proposed sites.
We saw no incinerators in photos captured by The Associated Press, Reuters or Getty Images.
Although we found no evidence supporting this claim, it’s worth noting that many industries — zoos, law enforcement agencies, medical and healthcare facilities and municipal governments — use incinerators as part of their standard procedures.
Law enforcement agencies may rely on incinerators for burning general waste, collected drugs from take-back programs, biological evidence, illegal drugs and paraphernalia, biological waste, seized contraband, food waste, and trash.
Incinerators can also be located at detention centers for everyday uses, such as burning trash and food waste as we mentioned above.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says there are incinerators that combust waste at institutional facilities, such as prisons.
RELATED: Fact-checking Trump at Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz about immigration, One Big Beautiful Bill
RELATED: Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz' immigration detention center isn't funded by FEMA hurricane money
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