WATCH: Chris Cuomo’s gotcha question for Tom Homan about ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ backfires
Border czar Tom Homan reminded NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo on Tuesday how much illegal migrants cost taxpayers under the Biden administration after being pressed about Democrats complaining over the cost of “Alligator Alcatraz.”
President Donald Trump and officials from his administration toured Florida’s new “Alligator Alcatraz” facility Tuesday, located in southern Florida and expected to cost $450 million for 5,000 beds to house illegal migrants and other foreign nationals in detention. While on “Cuomo,” the NewsNation host pressed Homan about the backlash the project’s price tag has received, prompting Homan to reflect on how the Biden administration handled illegal immigration.
“Well, let’s compare it to the last administration, OK? They’re putting illegal aliens in hotel rooms in New York City for like 500 bucks a night. That’s a fact,” Homan said. “Five hundred dollars per alien, per night for a hotel room. Then they had to pay for food, three meals a day. They had to pay for medical care. They had to pay for attorney access. All these other things were added to that 500 bucks a night. So who knows what the cost was, really. I don’t have that number.”
With millions of illegal migrants entering the U.S. and fueling a border crisis under the Biden administration, the president has distributed millions to states and cities dealing with the issue. In August 2024, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security approved more than $380 million for FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program (SSP) in communities across the country.
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The payout followed nearly $260 million in SSP grants distributed in April 2024 and over $780 million in 2023 sent to SSP and the Emergency Food and Shelter Program.
“I can tell you the beds here are just under 300, is what I was briefed on. That includes three meals a day, full medical doctors and nurses on site,” Homan added. “So you got food, you got medical. What’s great about this facility is there’s an airstrip right there. So we can also have additional efficiencies on transportation because we have air transport in Arizona. We got in Texas. We got in Louisiana. Having an airstrip in Florida, we have all the East Coast states staging in Florida instead of having numerous, sending some to Louisiana, sending some on to Arizona for a removal of Central America or to Asia.”
With sanctuary cities being used by the Biden administration to house illegal migrants, some, like New York City, spent $1.45 billion on migrants in fiscal year 2023. By 2024, Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams began cracking down on the city’s migrant shelters, citing a $12 billion deficit at the time.
“Now we have an airstrip right there in Florida, which not only benefits that facility, because we’re going to have immigration hearings also at that facility in Florida. Which means when they get already deported, and we get a planeload, we can simply load a plane right there and take them to their home country,” Homan said.
“So it’s actually a cost savings on the beds compared to [the] last administration. It’s an extreme cost savings on transportation because you got an airstrip right there that can serve the entire East Coast,” Homan said.
Since Trump re-entered office, his administration has pushed forward with its agenda to crack down on illegal migrants and conduct mass deportations. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, officials have made over 20,000 arrests so far in the 2025 fiscal year.
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