Environmental Groups Sue to Block Migrant Detention Center Rising in Florida Everglades
Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Friday to block a migrant detention center being built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades. The lawsuit seeks to halt the project until it undergoes a stringent environmental review as required by federal law.
There is also supposed to be a chance for public comment, according to the lawsuit filed in Miami federal court. The center, dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz' by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is set to begin processing people who entered the US illegally as soon as next week, the governor said Friday on Fox & Friends.
The state is plowing ahead with building a compound of heavy-duty tents, trailers, and other temporary buildings at the Miami-Dade County–owned airfield in the Big Cypress National Preserve about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of downtown Miami. The lawsuit names several federal and state agencies as defendants.
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Al Arabiya
20 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
DHS Secretary Praises Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz' Plan as Agency Expands Immigration Detention
The Homeland Security secretary is praising Florida for an idea dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz,' which would house immigration detainees in a facility being built in a Florida swamp. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the department has been looking to expand immigration detention capacity and reviewing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts with various vendors for detention beds. 'The ones with some of the vendors that we had I felt were way too expensive and that those vendors were not giving us fair prices, and so I went directly to states to ask them if they could do a better job providing this service,' she said in an interview with The Associated Press as her Latin America trip ended late Thursday. She said the department has been reaching out to states or companies who aren't regular ICE contractors to see whether they're able to provide the needed detention space at a better price. 'We really are looking for people that want to help drive down the cost but still provide a very high level of detention facility,' she said. Noem said Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier brought this particular idea to the department. 'They were willing to build it and do it much quicker than what some of the other vendors were. And it was a real solution that we'll be able to utilize if we need to,' she said. Noem said they evaluated the contract and it made sense. As the Trump administration has dramatically ramped up immigration enforcement, the number of people in ICE detention has swelled. ICE detention facilities held more than 56,000 immigrants in June–the most since 2019. Florida officials have dubbed the facility they're building in the remote and ecologically sensitive wetland about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of downtown Miami as 'Alligator Alcatraz.' The facility, located at an isolated Everglades airfield surrounded by mosquito-, python-, and alligator-filled swamplands, is just days away from being operational. The detention facility is Florida's latest effort to assist in President Trump's mass deportation agenda. Noem said some of the ICE detention contracts put in place under her predecessor, Alejandro Mayorkas, were for 10–15 years. 'That's insane to me. If we do our job correctly, we shouldn't be doing this 15 years from now,' she said. The detention contracts were among a range of subjects Noem spoke about with the Associated Press during an interview in Guatemala City at the end of her four-country tour through Central America. Noem made stops in Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala. Here are some of the other highlights of the conversation: Signing security agreements. Noem said that President Trump encouraged her to visit Central American countries that have historically been points of origin for many migrants to the US and get more security agreements–or to finalize ones where discussions had already started–and to get them across the finish line. She praised Honduras for being much more of a partner than in the past and said that they had signed a safe third country agreement with Honduras, calling it a big win from this trip. She said Guatemala on Thursday also agreed to be a safe third country. The agreements expand the Trump administration's efforts to provide the US government flexibility in returning migrants not only to their own countries but also to third countries as it attempts to ramp up deportations. 'We've never believed that the United States should be the only option, that the guarantee for a refugee is that they go somewhere to be safe and to be protected from whatever threat they face in their country,' she said. 'It doesn't necessarily have to be the United States.' Noem said those agreements were something the administration has been working on for months, 'but they weren't happening until we came here. We've been putting a lot of pressure on them to finalize those agreements,' she said. 'And both of those countries did, which is great.' Both governments denied having signed safe third-country agreements when asked following Noem's comments. Noem had said Thursday that, politically, this is a difficult agreement for their governments to do. Both countries have limited resources and many needs, making support for asylum-seekers from other countries a tougher sell domestically. There are also the optics of two left-of-center governments appearing to help the Trump administration limit access to US asylum. Noem also signed an agreement with Guatemala on Thursday that establishes a Joint Security Program under which US Customs and Border Protection officers would work with the Guatemalan government to improve border security in Guatemala. Under the agreement, CBP officers will be stationed at the country's international airport–and possibly other airports in the future–to assist the Guatemalan government in identifying travelers who might be involved in terrorism or other crimes or pose a threat to Guatemala by smuggling contraband or currency in or out of the country. America's strongest partners. Noem said both Costa Rica and Guatemala want to partner with the US. 'Guatemala and Costa Rica, I feel like, are competing for this a little bit. They both want to be America's strongest partners,' she said. Costa Rica specifically wants US help in its efforts to screen every person or package coming into the country, she said. Noem said Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves isn't asking the US to pay for the technology or equipment but instead wants help negotiating with private companies to get Costa Rica what it needs. The partnership is different in Guatemala, though. There, Noem said, the government wants American help in going after drug cartels. Speaking of her talks with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo, she said he had specific requests during their meeting Thursday designed to help Guatemala target cartels. 'He wants us to help support him in going after them because they're seeing a big increase in drug usage here in this country,' she said. She said Panama, which is home to the economically crucial Panama Canal, has been a priority of this administration. The country is also a key part of the migration route from South America to the US. In recent years, hundreds of thousands of migrants have traversed the treacherous Darien Gap connecting Panama and Colombia. Although that traffic started to fall last year under the Biden administration and dwindled to nothing after Trump took office, Noem said during her time in Panama they discussed how to sustain that drop. But she was critical of Panama when it came to information-sharing: 'That country has worked with us, but it hasn't been our greatest partner, I would say, as far as sharing information.'
Al Arabiya
21 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Environmental Groups Sue to Block Migrant Detention Center Rising in Florida Everglades
Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Friday to block a migrant detention center being built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades. The lawsuit seeks to halt the project until it undergoes a stringent environmental review as required by federal law. There is also supposed to be a chance for public comment, according to the lawsuit filed in Miami federal court. The center, dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz' by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is set to begin processing people who entered the US illegally as soon as next week, the governor said Friday on Fox & Friends. The state is plowing ahead with building a compound of heavy-duty tents, trailers, and other temporary buildings at the Miami-Dade County–owned airfield in the Big Cypress National Preserve about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of downtown Miami. The lawsuit names several federal and state agencies as defendants.
Al Arabiya
2 days ago
- Al Arabiya
Meet the Senate Parliamentarian, the Official Tying Republicans in Knots Over Their Tax Bill
Some Republicans expressed indignation Thursday after the Senate parliamentarian advised that some measures in their tax and immigration bill could not be included in the legislation. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., tweeted on X that Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough should be fired 'ASAP.' Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., intimated that she was partisan, asking, 'Why does an unelected swamp bureaucrat who was appointed by Harry Reid over a decade ago get to decide what's in the bill?' It's hardly the first time the parliamentarian's normally low-key and lawyerly role has drawn public criticism. MacDonough also dashed Democratic plans over the years, advising in 2021 that they couldn't include a minimum wage increase in their COVID-19 relief bill. Later that same year, she advised that Democrats needed to drop an effort to let millions of immigrants remain temporarily in the US as part of their big climate bill. But the attention falling on MacDonough's rulings in recent years also reflects a broader change in Congress, with lawmakers increasingly trying to wedge their top policy priorities into bills that can't be filibustered in the Senate. The process comes with special rules designed to deter provisions unrelated to spending or taxes–and that's where the parliamentarian comes in, offering analysis of what does and doesn't qualify. Her latest round of decisions Thursday was a blow to the GOP's efforts to wring hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid over the next decade. Senate Republicans could opt to try to override her recommendations, but they are unlikely to do so. Here's a closer look at what the Senate parliamentarian does and why lawmakers are so focused on her recommendations right now. The crucial role of the parliamentarian Both the House and Senate have a parliamentarian to provide assistance on that chamber's rules and precedents. They are often seen advising whoever is presiding over the chamber on the proper procedures to be followed and the appropriate responses to a parliamentary inquiry. They are also charged with providing information to lawmakers and their respective staff on a strictly nonpartisan and confidential basis. The parliamentarians and their staff only offer advice. Their recommendations are not binding. In the case of the massive tax and spending bill now before both chambers, the parliamentarian plays a critical role in advising whether the reconciliation bill's provisions remain focused on fiscal issues. How MacDonough became the first woman in the job MacDonough, an English literature major, is the Senate's first woman to be parliamentarian and just the sixth person to hold the position since its creation in 1935. She began her Senate career in its library before leaving to get a law degree at Vermont Law School. She worked briefly as a Justice Department trial attorney before returning to the Senate in 1999, this time as an assistant in the parliamentarian's office. She was initially appointed parliamentarian in 2012 by Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, Senate majority leader at the time. She was retained by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., when he became majority leader in 2015. She helped Chief Justice John Roberts preside over Trump's 2020 Senate impeachment trial and was beside then-Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., for Trump's second trial the following year. Trump was acquitted both times. When Trump supporters fought past police and into the Capitol in hopes of disrupting Congress' certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory, MacDonough and other staffers rescued those ballots and hustled mahogany boxes containing them to safety. MacDonough's office on the Capitol's first floor was ransacked and declared a crime scene. Can the Senate ignore the parliamentarian's advice? Yes. The parliamentarian makes the recommendation, but it's the presiding officer overseeing Senate proceedings who rules on provisions in the bill. If there is a dispute, it would be put to a vote. Michael Thorning, director of structural democracy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank, said he doubts Republicans will want to go that route. And indeed some Republican senators said as much Thursday. 'It's the institutional integrity, even if I'm convinced one hundred percent she's wrong,' said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. Thorning said lawmakers from both parties view MacDonough as very much an honest broker. 'And the Senate relies on her,' Thorning said. 'Sometimes those decisions cut your way and sometimes they don't. I also think members recognize that once you start treating the parliamentarian's advice as just something that could be easily dismissed, then the rules start to matter less.' Have parliamentarians been fired? Majority leaders from both parties have replaced the parliamentarian. For more than three decades the position alternated between Robert Dove and Alan Frumin depending upon which party was in the majority. Thorning said the two parliamentarians weren't far apart, though, in how they interpreted the Senate's rules and precedents. MacDonough succeeded Frumin as parliamentarian. He said the small number of calls Thursday for her dismissal tells you all people need to know about the current parliamentarian. 'Senators know this isn't somebody playing politics,' Thorning said.
