MIAMI — Days after President Donald Trump and top administration officials toured Alligator Alcatraz and gave the migrant detention center a ringing endorsement, the federal government is saying it has nothing to do with the state-run facility deep in the Everglades.

“The Department of Homeland Security has not implemented, authorized, directed or funded Florida’s temporary detention center,” the agency wrote in court records filed Thursday.

Alligator Alcatraz is a Florida-run project. The state and its contractors were tasked with building out the facility. But the court documents sang a very different tune than DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency has over $600 million dollars available through the Federal Emergency Management Agency for Florida to tap for reimbursement. At the site on its opening day, Tuesday, Noem credited her agency with approaching Florida to collaborate on the site.

“My general counsel ... called up the Attorney General and the Governor and said, ‘Hey, what do you think about partnering with us on a detention facility?” said Noem. “This facility is exactly what I want every single governor in this country to consider doing with us.”

In a separate filing, a top official of Immigration and Customs Enforcement — the DHS agency tasked with arresting and deporting immigrants — says that ICE’s role has been limited to ensuring compliance with detention standards. “The State of Florida is responsible for the funding and construction of the facility,” wrote Thomas Giles, assistant director for ICE field operations.

The court filing, issued as a response to a lawsuit accusing the government of sidestepping federal environmental law in building the facility, appears to put some distance between the feds and the new facility.

The lawyer leading the suit against the administration, Paul Schwiep of Coffey Burlington, said he saw this move coming.

“We anticipated that the defendants would try and suggest this is entirely a state project and therefore [federal environmental law] doesn’t apply,” he said in a press call Tuesday, shortly after the formal opening of the facility. “This has to be a federal project, and today both the president and governor said this was done with federal help.”

The court filings also followed the White House and DHS giving major publicity to the facility, including AI-generated images of alligators dressed up as ICE officers, photos and videos of Trump and Noem at the facility, and statements on how the facility would provide DHS with much-needed bed space.

“Alligator Alcatraz, and other facilities like it, will give us the capability to lock up some of the worst scumbags who entered our country under the previous administration. We will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida. Make America safe again,” Noem said in a statement on June 23.

The court documents purport to drastically diminish any federal role in constructing or operating Alligator Alcatraz. In those documents, Giles also said that DHS is not paying for the detention center and is not choosing which detainees are housed there.

“The ultimate decision of who to detain at the TNT Detention Facility belongs to Florida,” he wrote. “ICE has not purchased or otherwise procured any detention space from Florida for the detention of illegal aliens at the TNT Detention Facility.”

The facility is set to be filled with detainees scooped up by Florida officials under the numerous 287(g) agreements various police departments have entered into with ICE across the state. These agreements allow trained police officers to detain and arrest people accused of breaking immigration rules.

Money for Alligator Alcatraz is set to come from FEMA, but the agency hasn’t shelled out a dime yet.

David Richardson, the acting head of FEMA, also told the court that while there are available federal funds to cover the costs — specifically earmarked for Florida — the state hasn’t requested them yet.

FEMA has $600 million available in its Detention Support Grant Program that can go toward Florida’s facility, and once the fund is ready, the state can apply for and win grants from that fund.

“Costs for constructing new, permanent buildings are not allowable,” Richardson said.

DHS has previously told the Herald that initial construction of tents and other temporary facilities will be followed by more permanent structures.

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