Federal officials said Tuesday that an immigration detention centre at a remote Everglades airfield surrounded by swamps full of alligators, mosquitoes, and pythons will soon be open for business.
Florida officials are working quickly to build what they’ve called “Alligator Alcatraz” to help carry out President Trump’s plan to deport a lot of people. They are putting together a compound of heavy-duty tents, trailers, and temporary buildings that look like the places that are used after natural disasters.
Environmentalists and human rights activists are worried about building the facility in a wetland that is far away and very important to wildlife. The plan has been called cruel and inhumane by these groups.
According to state officials, the installation is very important to help the federal government’s immigration crackdown. This has led to a record-high number of detentions, with about 59,000 immigrants being held in June, the most since 2019.
Uthmeier: “It’s not possible to go anywhere else.”
Florida wants to have 5,000 immigration detention beds ready by early July, according to Attorney General James Uthmeier. Uthmeier was chief of staff for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and a key architect of the state’s tough immigration enforcement campaign. The site is being built during the dog days of summer.
In 2022, Uthmeier helped set up flights for about 50 Venezuelans to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, that were paid for by the government.
Florida officials think that the harsh conditions around the huge Everglades airstrip and its nearly 10,500-foot (3,200-meter) runway make it a great place to house and transport migrants.
“We don’t need to build a lot of brick and mortar,” Uthmeier told Benny Johnson, a conservative media commentator. “And thankfully, Mother Nature does a lot on the perimeter.”
“There isn’t anywhere to go.” “If you live there or are being held there, there is no way in or out,” Uthmeier said.
It wants to more than double the number of beds it has for holding migrants, from 41,000 to at least 100,000.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a tax-cutting and budget-balancing bill last month that includes $45 billion over four years for immigrant detention. This is three times as much money as was originally planned. The Senate is now thinking about that bill.
Possible health risks for ICE detainees and effects on the environment
Environmentalists, including the famous Marjory Stoneman Douglas, fought hard more than 50 years ago to keep the same piece of land from being turned into the world’s biggest airport.
Now, activists are coming together to stop what some have called a “heist” backed by the government.
Friends of the Everglades says in a statement, “This land is part of one of the most fragile ecosystems in the country. It is surrounded by Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve.” “Let’s not be stupid like we were before. This land should be protected for a long time.
The detention centre was criticised by Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, who called the alligators that were used as a security measure a “cruel spectacle.”
“Donald Trump, his Administration, and his enablers have made one thing brutally clear: they intend to use the power of government to kidnap, brutalise, starve, and harm every single immigrant they can – because they have a deep disdain for immigrants and are using them to scapegoat the serious issues facing working people,” Frost wrote in a statement.
Maria Asuncion Bilbao, who is the Florida campaign coordinator for the immigration rights group American Friends Service Committee, said that the health and safety of people who are being held in jail are in danger.
“What’s happening is very concerning, the level of dehumanisation,” he said. “It’s like a theatricalisation of cruelty.”
As the leader of a group of immigration advocates who help immigrants at one of the ICE offices in South Florida, Bilbao said she is worried about the health risks of the heat and mosquitoes, as well as the difficulties that people in the community face when they want to protest or keep an eye on what’s going on there because the site is so far away.
DHS backs the plan in Florida.
People from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have praised the work and the department’s “partnership with Florida.”
A lot of the money for the new building will come from the Shelter and Services Program at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA is best known for helping people after hurricanes and other natural disasters.
In a written statement to the AP, Noem said, “We are working at full speed on cost-effective and creative ways to carry out the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal aliens.” “We will expand facilities and bed space in just days.”
A U.S. official said that running the facility “through a team of vendors” will cost $245 per bed per day, or $450 million per year. Florida will pay for it, and FEMA, which has a $625 million shelter and service program fund, will pay it back.
The centre will hold immigrants arrested by Florida police under the federal 287(g) program as well as immigrants being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
As a result of the program to bring back 287(g), local and state police can question immigrants they are holding and hold them until they can be deported.
More than 280 agreements have been signed by agencies in all 67 counties in Florida. This is more than a third of the 720 agreements that ICE has reached across the country.
Florida is building Alligator Alcatraz under emergency rules.
Officials from the state are taking over the land using their emergency powers, which were given to them by DeSantis in response to what he saw as a crisis caused by illegal immigration while he was governor and Joe Biden was president.
Even though Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, local activists, and Native American tribal leaders who believe the land is sacred are worried, the building is going ahead on county-owned land in Florida.
Because the state can get around buying things laws and speed up the project with executive orders, Fried said this was an abuse of power.
Kevin Guthrie is the state’s head of emergency management. The orders give him a lot of power, such as the ability to suspend “any statute, rule, or order” that is seen as slowing down the response to the emergency and to put certain police officers from across the state under his “direct command and coordination.”
“Governor DeSantis has insisted that the state of Florida will help the federal government enforce immigration law while he is in charge,” a DeSantis spokesperson said in a statement.
“Florida will continue to lead on immigration enforcement.”
