U.S. immigration detainees start to arrive at Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz' in the Everglades
In a matter of days, an isolated training airport in the Everglades where endangered Florida panthers roam became a sprawling immigration detention center christened 'Alligator Alcatraz,' modelled after the state's frequent responses to hurricanes and built in part by companies whose owners have donated generously to Republicans.
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It's been less than two weeks since the state seized the property from Miami-Dade County. Massive tents have been erected and a steady stream of trucks carrying portable toilets, asphalt and construction materials have been driving through the site inside the Big Cypress National Preserve around the clock in what environmentalists fear will have a devastating impact on the wildlife in the protected wetlands.
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'We are dealing with a storm,' said Jae Williams, spokesman for Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who is credited as the architect behind the proposal. 'And the storm's name is immigration.'
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The first detainees arrived Thursday at the facility, which will cost US$450 million to operate and consists of tents and trailers surrounded by razor wire on swampland about 45 miles (72 kilometres) west of downtown Miami.
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Republicans named it after what was once one of the most notorious prisons in the U.S. and have billed it as a temporary lockup that is essential to President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
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Opponents decry it as a political stunt and fear it could become permanent. The Republican Party of Florida has taken to fundraising off the detention center, selling branded T-shirts and beer koozies emblazoned with the facility's name.
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'The proposal was rolled out without any public input in one of the most ecologically sensitive regions of Florida, and arguably the United States,' said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, which is among environmental groups that have sued to stop the project.
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Some GOP donors whose companies helped build and will assist in running the facility are being given seven-figure sums. Five Democratic state lawmakers who tried to visit the site Thursday issued a statement calling it 'a pay-for-play scheme to enrich GOP donors under the pretense of border enforcement.' One of the lawmakers, state Sen. Shevrin Jones, posted on social media that they were denied access.
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Hot, humid summers; regular flooding; and wildlife that includes alligators and venomous snakes make the area where the detention center is located inhospitable to long-term living.
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