The Fake Grassroots Network Targeting 'Alligator Alcatraz' Contractor
Leftists are trying to cancel companies supporting Trump's national deportation initiative.
Restoration News has traced a collection of professional activist groups smearing at least one contractor involved in Florida's massive new Everglades immigration detention facility, commonly called "Alligator Alcatraz."
In October, left-wing agitators launched a campaign to blacklist CDR Maguire, part of a constellation of companies involved in government healthcare and detention projects, including the South Florida Detention Facility—a.k.a. "Alligator Alcatraz"—from Miami-Dade's list of pre-qualified vendors for emergency services. CDR Health, an affiliate, reportedly won a $17.5 million contract to provide medical facilities to the site.
Restoration News reached out to CDR for comment, but received no reply in time for publication.
The attack campaign is spearheaded by Florida Rising, a Miami-based get-out-the-vote group. Florida Rising, in turn, has affiliations with the radical Center for Popular Democracy, a New York voter mobilization nonprofit heavily funded by Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss; the Miami Foundation, a pass-through that funds numerous left-wing political groups in Florida; George Soros' Open Society Policy Center; the Ford Foundation; and anonymous donors to the multibillion-dollar Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund.
Other filings show millions of dollars in grants from the now-defunct Arabella Advisors dark money network, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Voter Registration Project—which targets minority votes for Democratic get-out-the-vote drives.
"Corporate-funded politicians spread lies and exploit our fears to justify spending hundreds of millions on detaining people based on how they look or where they're from—money that should be spent rebuilding homes, repairing roads, and preparing us for the next storm," Florida Rising claims on an attack site.
That attack site solicits Floridians' private information—including home and email addresses, all of which is crucial for political groups doing get-out-the-vote activism. And they're doing it by selling a false narrative.
Following the Money (For Real)
In July 2025, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Trump opened the nation's first federally funded, state-run center for detaining 5,000 illegal aliens as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts. Under an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, DeSantis authorized $450 million in emergency contracts to build and staff the facility, funds reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program.
So far, FEMA has allocated $608 million to reimburse Florida, but the funds have yet to be paid out.
The Shelter and Services Program was established by congressional Democrats and the Biden administration in 2023 to "alleviate overcrowding [of] . . . noncitizens" in Customs and Border Patrol detention facilities. In practice, that entailed $1.45 billion in grants to governments and nonprofits to provide hotel rooms with housekeeping services, flights, parking, and food for illegal aliens under the Biden administration.
At the time, Democrats championed the Shelter and Services Program for alleviating costs to sanctuary cities housing "asylum seekers," even demanding Biden remove the "burdensome requirements preventing cities and organizations . . . from accessing" program funding. New York City, for example, received nearly $81 million spent sheltering and feeding illegal aliens, many of them in hotels.
Now leftists are presenting the program as "disaster relief" and falsely claiming DeSantis "divert[ed] $450 million in emergency disaster funds—money meant to rebuild homes and keep communities safe after storms—to run a makeshift concentration camp in the Everglades."
In reality, the funds were authorized under Florida's 2023 immigration emergency declaration allowing the governor wide latitude to fast-track construction and equipment purchases as "emergency procurement," the same set of powers governors invoke for hurricanes and other natural disasters—with the money refunded by FEMA.
Will Agitate for Money
Florida Rising lobbies for legislation to restore felons' voting rights and allow individuals to register to vote and cast a ballot on election day, as is done in Virginia, California, Illinois, and other blue states.
Another ongoing campaign would grant illegal aliens in-state tuition for Florida colleges, abolish the requirement for hospitals to collect immigration status data, and ban law enforcement from wearing masks while assisting federal immigration officers—a basic protection for their families.
Florida Rising has already endorsed bills in the Florida legislature to ban masks for law enforcement—as have other supporters of its anti-Alligator Alcatraz coalition: Florida for All, Dream Defenders, Florida Student Power Network, and Florida Immigrant Coalition.
Florida for All, a PAC that funds Democrat voter drives, is currently running a campaign to "defund ICE" complete with a sample script accusing federal law enforcement of "state-sponsored violence." Despite its "radical" identity, it's funded by traditional Democratic standbys: Donald Sussman, a hedge fund executive and Center for American Progress board member, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a former Arabella wing. In 2019, it hired Raymond Paultre, a former Florida Democratic Party staffer and Obama campaign activist, as its executive director.
Dream Defenders, by contrast, is a self-described "revolutionary" group that wants to overthrow capitalism and replace it with an authoritarian socialist system. That includes abolishing police and prisons altogether, since the group claims law enforcement itself is rooted in American slavery.
Yet Dream Defenders is fiscally nested within Tides Advocacy, a branch of one of the establishment Left's biggest and oldest funders: the Tides Foundation. Tides specializes in moving anonymous contributions from donors into political groups, and even incubating new organizations—Dream Defenders included. Tides sponsors the non-profit status of radical groups, helping them to delay reporting requirements to the IRS.
The Florida Student Power Network also aims to elect Democrats. It's headed by Ana Guevara, an illegal alien born in Nicaragua who's lobbied for "in-state tuition for undocumented youth" and "immigrant rights."
Similarly, the Florida Immigrant Coalition is funded by the Tides Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Voter Registration Project to elect "pro-immigration candidates" through voter canvassing efforts. Restoration News has also traced grants from the NoVo Foundation, bankrolled by billionaire Warren Buffett's son Peter; the Arabella network; and NEO Philanthropy, a Tides-style pass-through grantmaker for obscuring donor identities.
The coalition is currently involved in a lawsuit to overturn Florida Senate Bill 4C, which established criminal penalties for adults who illegally enter the United States. The lawsuit is still being fought in the courts.
FROM THE BORDER:
EXCLUSIVE: The Anti-ICE Revolution Shares an Office in Minneapolis
COMMENTARY: Correcting the Record: Confronting Lies about Immigration Officers
WATCH: Making New Americans Fit for Freedom with Vanessa Faura | Restoration Spotlight
FOLLOW THE MONEY: The Left’s Top Dark Money Monster Is Dying—and Taking the Democratic Party With It
Help us expose the Left—chip in today
Restoration News, a project of Restoration of America, is your trusted investigative news source for the America First movement. As a rapidly growing conservative news site, we focus on delivering accurate and insightful exposés on political news, immigration news, leftist lies, and other pressing issues affecting everyday Americans. Our uncompromising commitment to a hard-hitting, fact-based, America First, and faithful perspective ensures that you receive news that aligns with your values.
Every dollar gets us closer to winning the war on woke
