Five of the contractors Florida has employed to build and operate Alligator Alcatraz -- the controversial immigration detention site in the Everglades -- have links to allegations of improper business practices and misuse of public funds, a Miami Herald review of legal records found.
One of the firms allegedly allowed armed Mexican nationals with no legal immigration status to be brought into the United States by a subcontractor to provide security for its work in building a border wall as part of a federal contract. Another recently agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement addressing allegations that it had sold to the U.S. federal government products made in prohibited countries like China. A third shares top executives with two businesses that were accused by ex-employees of filing inflated hurricane insurance claims in federally-declared disaster areas.
The findings raise questions about the DeSantis administration's vetting of the companies that received Alligator Alcatraz contracts, all of which were granted under the terms of an emergency order Gov. Ron DeSantis first issued in 2023, declaring an illegal immigration emergency. The order grants the state executive sweeping powers to suspend any regulation or rule that may slow down response to an emergency, including the process of awarding contracts.
The DeSantis administration described the process for soliciting contractors in general but did not answer when asked whether these same contractors would be tasked with operating "Deportation Depot" -- a newly announced detention facility in a currently-shuttered prison in north Florida.
The Herald's reporting is based on court and corporate documents, campaign finance and lobbying data and the nearly three-dozen contracting records and purchase orders downloaded before the state replaced them with documents with significantly less detail.
Gov. Ron DeSantis' office and the Florida Division of Emergency Management did not answer the Herald's detailed questions about the allegations surrounding the contractors and what kind of background checks or audits were performed before awarding the contracts.
The Division of Emergency Management only said that the initial contract records were replaced on the public-facing portal because they "included proprietary information that shouldn't have been uploaded."
SLSCO and Garner Environmental Services
SLSCO, a Galveston, Texas-based business the DeSantis administration tasked with constructing and maintaining Alligator Alcatraz, had previously been awarded $1.4 billion in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracts to build President Trump's border wall in 2019.
A former FBI Special Agent and an ex-San Diego County Sheriff's deputy hired to oversee security at the border wall construction site sued SLSCO in a Southern California federal court the following year.
The suit, filed anonymously, accused the firm of "knowingly permitting and actively facilitating the crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border by armed Mexican nationals into the United States" during the construction project. It alleged that SLSCO and its subcontractor used these "unvetted workers" as guards in "sensitive and lightly-secured areas" at the construction site.
The two former law enforcement officials alleged that one of SLSCO's subcontractors had even cleared a dirt road to allow easy access from Mexico into the United States. They also alleged that senior managers were aware of these violations of the contract agreements as well as federal immigration and firearm laws and "attempted to hide this misconduct" by pressuring the former FBI agent to not disclose the issues to the Army Corps of Engineers.
Things escalated in July 2019 when there was a shootout on the American side of the border between the Mexicans employed as guards and other Mexican nationals who had crossed over to steal property, the lawsuit states. The two officials' lost their jobs later that year, in what they viewed as retaliation from the company for resisting internal pressure and filing reports to the Army Corps anyway.
The suit alleges that a few months before suing SLSCO in early 2020, the two had also shared details with the FBI.
The court docket shows the former FBI agent and sheriff's deputy moved in January 2021 to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning they can bring the suit again at a later date.
In 2024, a New York City audit found SLSCO repeatedly charged the city high rates for operating its shelters for asylum seekers. It noted that in one instance the company charged hourly rates that were 237% more than a similar contract for another firm. In another instance, SLSCO billed the city almost double what other contractors charged.
That audit also cites Garner Environmental Services, another firm tasked with constructing Alligator Alcatraz, for charging more than other businesses contracting with New York or even the salary rates of city employees.
"[H]iring new full-time civil service staff would always be more cost effective than paying Garner and SLSCO for their contracted-out staff," the report concluded.
SLSCO said in a statement that the allegations in the New York City audit and those surrounding the border wall were "thoroughly investigated and found to be without merit, and SLS was cleared of any wrongdoing."
When asked, the firm did not provide any evidence of the investigations and their conclusions mentioned in its statement.
Garner Environmental Services did not respond to the Herald's requests for comment.
IRG Global Emergency Management
IRG Global Emergency Management, a company based out of Conroe -- a city 40-miles north of Houston, Texas -- inked a $2.9 million deal on June 23 with Florida to provide transportation vehicles for Alligator Alcatraz. It contributed $10,000 to the Florida GOP the next day. On June 26, it signed another contract worth $2.2 million to provide "onsite emergency services" and "armory systems and materials" for the site.
IRG Global was registered to do business in Florida in February 2025. Among its executives at the time of registration were Domenico and Guiseppe Gagliano.
Two other companies that counted the Gaglianos among their executives and share the same office address as IRG Global were at the center of a late 2023 federal lawsuit in Houston. The companies, Global Estimating Services and Access Restoration Services, were sued by more than a dozen former employees who alleged they had not been paid bonuses worth thousands of dollars.
The employees also alleged that the two companies -- which go by GES and ARS -- had used them as pawns in a plan with a Texas law firm to file inflated insurance claims in federally-declared disaster areas. The employees stated that while working as field inspectors in Florida, Texas and Louisiana, they would travel to sites of property loss to document the damage but the inspection was limited to just what they observed without trying to determine whether it was disaster-related or not.
GES, they said, also instructed them to "document non-covered, unrelated property damage," and keep the scope descriptions uncharacteristically vague. Contrary to popular practice, they said they were prohibited from communicating with the insurance carriers.
The employees alleged that at times they would be paid by ARS despite being officially employed by GES and while in Florida, they were "required to fill out ARS timesheets bearing the ARS logo."
Data recorded by the former employees would be used, the lawsuit states, by "GES and ARS to formulate estimates for substantial hurricane and storm damage." The Texas law firm, the ex-employees' complaint stated, would then use those "inflated estimates" to "prosecute claims against national insurers."
GES and IRS denied any wrongdoing. The case ended in a settlement in April this year. ARS had previously sued the Texas law firm in 2023. But the incident has led to a flurry of lawsuits leaving hundreds of homeowners waiting on claims to finish their repairs while the courts sort out the legal mess.
IRG Global Emergency Management, the contractor that is working on Alligator Alcatraz, said that it has "no involvement or connection" in the legal matter of GES and that IRG and ARS are "separate legal entities." ARS also said it had "no involvement whatsoever" in formulating the estimates used in the insurance claims.
"Any reporting that suggests ARS is connected to these matters would be categorically false," ARS said in a statement to the Herald.
IRG Global did not respond after the Herald shared corporation documents showing the company listed the same offices and common executives as GES and ARS. ARS and IRG Global removed the Gaglianos from company paperwork in Florida and Texas roughly two weeks later.
IRG Global and ARS were contracted by Florida even before Alligator Alcatraz was in the works. In mid-June this year, Florida awarded a contract worth roughly $19 million to IRG Global to fly Americans out of Israel amid the country's conflict with Iran.
ARS contributed at least $99,000 to Gov. DeSantis' reelection campaign in 2022 and the same amount separately to the state Republican Party the next year, campaign finance records show. That year, ARS was also involved in the DeSantis administration's efforts to fly migrants to Democrat-leaning cities and states.
GardaWorld and CDW
Also part of this effort to fly migrants to more liberal cities was another company that is providing administrative support services to Alligator Alcatraz -- Canadian multinational defense and security conglomerate, GardaWorld.
The company's Boca Raton-based cash services arm carries America's money: Its armored trucks are used by clients ranging from Bank of America to McDonald's.
A 2020 Tampa Bay Times investigation found that its trucks often lacked reliable brakes, seat belts or even seats. Its drivers were barely trained and pressured to work at a frantic pace. The trucks kept hurtling out of control, "swerving into traffic, plunging into ditches and smashing into cars." GardaWorld trucks averaged 100 collisions each month from 2014 to 2016, the Times found. The collisions killed at least 19 and injured hundreds.
GardaWorld dismissed the Times investigation as unsubstantiated and said that all such claims have "long been dismissed without any finding against GardaWorld Cash." It added that in recent years it has invested heavily in driver training and other protocols ensuring safety, security and legal compliance.
Additionally, the company and its subsidiaries and affiliates have received $1.2 billion in federal contracts, mostly from the U.S. State Department and its personnel have been deployed at military bases, consulates and oilfields in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2008.
GardaWorld's operations in Afghanistan have also come under fire.
A 20-year U.S. Army veteran, Justin Fahn, who had once been employed by GardaWorld and sent to Afghanistan sued the company in a Georgia federal court in 2020 alleging that "many of the employees they [GardaWorld and its subsidiaries] hired to protect the U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic facilities were unqualified," had failed to pass required training classes and refresher courses or had not taken them at all.
"[T]heir failure to ensure that their employees are physically fit and properly trained has seriously jeopardized the safety of Department of State personnel and assets in Afghanistan," stated the complaint. Fahn also alleged that the firm and its counsel engaged in "witness tampering," "made material misrepresentations" to the court and federal prosecutors and acted in "bad faith" during the course of the lawsuit.
Fahn's allegations around pre-deployment training were dismissed by the judge presiding over the case. But his allegations that GardaWorld employees did not complete annual refresher training were allowed to go forward.
Court documents show the State Department audited GardaWorld's pre-deployment training records in 2019 and found improper paperwork, unauthorized instructors and other irregularities. GardaWorld implemented a corrective action plan that addressed the issues after the federal agency raised concerns with the firm.
GardaWorld denied the allegations to the court. The company and Fahn settled the case in August 2024.
In response to questions from the Herald, GardaWorld denied that there were allegations its personnel had failed to pass required training and endangered State Department employees. When the Herald shared court records contradicting its statement, the company emphasized the partial dismissal of the case and stated that it had reached an agreement to end legal proceedings and "remove further distractions" from its operations.
Florida is also procuring electronic equipment like radio and computer systems for Alligator Alcatraz from CDW Government -- an Illinois company which reported in its March quarterly filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it is currently being investigated by the Justice Department on false claims allegations. The company told investors that it is cooperating with the investigation.
The company has been in this position before.
It agreed to pay $5.66 million in 2013 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that from 1999 to 2011, it sold the federal government products made in China and other countries that are prohibited from the federal contracting process and also under-reported its sales in order to avoid paying a contracting fee. There was no determination of liability in settling the claims.
CDW Government did not respond to the Herald's requests for comment.
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