Latest news with #migrantdetention
CBS News
19 hours ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Environmental groups sue to block opening of "Alligator Alcatraz" migrant camp in Florida Everglades
Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Friday to block the opening of a facility dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," 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, called "Alligator Alcatraz" by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, is set to begin processing people who entered the U.S. illegally as soon as next week, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday on "Fox and 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 west of Downtown Miami. The lawsuit names several federal and state agencies as defendants.
Al Arabiya
19 hours ago
- Politics
- 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.
The Independent
20 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
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 U.S. illegally as soon as next week, the governor said Friday on 'Fox and 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.
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Florida plan for ‘Alligator Alcatraz' migrant jail sparks chorus of outrage
Environmental groups, immigration rights activists and a Native American tribe have decried the construction of a harsh outdoor migrant detention camp in the Florida Everglades billed by state officials as 'Alligator Alcatraz'. Crews began preparing the facility at a remote, largely disused training airfield this week in support of the Trump administration's aggressive goal of arresting and incarcerating 3,000 undocumented migrants every day. It is among a number of controversial new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) jails appearing around the country as the number of detentions by the agency surges dramatically. Florida officials say the Everglades camp, which has been criticized by the Democratic congressman Maxwell Frost as 'a cruel spectacle', will open in the first week of July – a month in which south Florida's daily heat index regularly exceeds 100F (37.8C). Paid for by Florida taxpayers and homeland security department funds, the project came about after the state seized the 39-square-mile site from its owners, Miami-Dade county, under emergency powers enacted by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. It now faces staunch opposition from an alliance of groups. These groups say housing up to 5,000 detainees in tents in the heat and humidity of the Florida summer, at a site surrounded by marshes and wetlands containing alligators, Burmese pythons and swarms of mosquitoes, amounts to inhumane treatment. James Uthmeier, the state's hard-right attorney general, laughed off the criticism. 'We believe in the swamp down here in Florida. We are swamp creatures,' he told the conservative podcast host Benny Johnson in a reveal of the scheme on Monday that bordered on mockery. 'There's no way in and no way out. The perimeter's already set by Mother Nature. People get out, there's not much waiting for them other than pythons and alligators.' The airfield's 11,000ft runway, he said, was perfect for large planes bringing in scores of undocumented persons detained by Ice from all over the US. 'There's a lot of low-hanging fruit,' said Uthmeier, who was held in civil contempt by a federal judge this month for continuing to enforce a state immigration law she blocked. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians condemned the use of its ancestral lands in the Big Cypress national preserve for detention purposes, citing parallels with the government's mass roundup and forced removal of Native Americans in the 19th century. 'The state would save substantial taxpayer dollars by pursuing its goals at a different location with more existing infrastructure and less environmental and cultural impacts to the Big Cypress and Tribal lands,' Talbert Cypress, chair of the Miccosukee Tribe, said in a statement posted to social media. Environmental fears have been raised by, among others, the Friends of the Everglades group, and the mayor of Miami-Dade, Daniella Levine Cava, who sent the Guardian a statement detailing her 'significant concerns about the scope and scale of the state's effort'. She said the project would have a 'potentially devastating impact to the Everglades', and noted that the state and federal government had invested billions of dollars in Everglades restoration efforts, some of which she fears could now be undone. 'We continue to have concerns about how a facility at this scale can operate without impacts to the surrounding ecosystem,' she said. Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, said the site was found unsuitable for development in the 1960s, when ambitious plans to make it a six-runway Everglades jetport with monorail service ferrying tourists to Florida's east and west coasts, was thwarted by environmental activism. 'All the reasons this was terrible back then still exist today,' she said. 'These are really valuable and protected Everglades wetlands, and if we move forward with a thousand-bed prison detention facility, whether it's temporary or not, there will be impacts from ancillary development, water and sewer impacts, water supply needs, traffic impacts. Those impacts were analyzed a half-century ago, and we know that they would be negative. 'Combined with the assault on Florida state parks last summer, and the rock mine proposal that we're currently fighting in the Everglades, it suggests the DeSantis administration is out of touch with what Floridians want, which is to protect the Everglades and our last remaining green spaces.' Neither the Florida department of emergency management, which is managing construction of the camp, nor Uthmeier's office responded to requests for comment. Immigration advocates, meanwhile, say the Everglades camp represents a sinister ramping up of the DeSantis's already vigorous endorsement of Donald Trump's agenda. The Tampa Bay Times reported on Wednesday that a second new detention facility, at the Florida national guard's Camp Blanding training center west of Jacksonville, was in the works. 'He just always has to throw red meat to his base, always has to generate controversy and polarization,' said Thomas Kennedy, spokesperson for the Florida Immigrant Coalition. 'So obviously, they pick the most controversial site possible, right in the Everglades, using language like the alligators and the snakes, making it seem like it's going to be like a medieval castle with a moat. 'There's no adequate running water or plumbing facilities. Uthmeier is out there saying we don't need to build brick and mortar because we'll just throw some tents up in the middle of the swamp, in July, in hurricane season, with the heat, no proper infrastructure and the mosquitoes. 'It's designed to enact suffering.' Frost, in a statement, called Uthmeier 'a Trump sycophant', and said the Everglades project was 'disgusting'. 'Donald Trump, his administration, and his enablers have made one thing brutally clear: they intend to use the power of government to kidnap, brutalize, starve, and harm every single immigrant they can,' he said. 'They target migrants, rip families apart, and subject people to conditions that amount to physical and psychological torture. Now, they want to erect tents in the blazing Everglades sun and call it immigration enforcement. They don't care if people live or die; they only care about cruelty and spectacle.'
CBS News
a day ago
- Politics
- CBS News
"Alligator Alcatraz" migrant detention center nears completion in Everglades amid growing backlash
Construction is nearly complete on "Alligator Alcatraz," a controversial migrant detention center deep in the Florida Everglades. But while the state moves forward, opposition from environmental groups, Indigenous tribes and local residents continues to mount. DeSantis defends site: "We aren't adding anything" Gov. Ron DeSantis has maintained that the facility, being built on a little-used runway, will not harm the environment and is necessary to support immigration enforcement efforts. "This is already built. We aren't adding anything," DeSantis said. "It's opposed by people against deportation." The governor has said the Everglades site is part of a broader plan to house 10,000 migrants statewide, including at a designated site in North Florida and a possible future location in Okeechobee County. DeSantis says these facilities will ease the burden on local jails, noting that Broward County currently holds 212 migrant detainees in custody. Critics cite environmental and cultural concerns Not all Floridians were aware of the project's location or scope. Vincent Cuchel, who often fishes in the Everglades, said he was surprised by the news. "I wonder about the construction. We will have to wait and see," Cuchel said. For many critics, the opposition is about more than immigration policy. Indigenous leaders have voiced deep concern over the facility's placement in a culturally and environmentally sensitive area. The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma has joined the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida in opposing the project. "For the Miccosukee, this area protected us. It became our permanent home," said Miccosukee advocate Betty Osceola. Protests grow as facility nears opening Last weekend, demonstrators lined the road in front of the detention center. Activists are also organizing another protest for this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., using social media to rally support. Despite mounting opposition, state officials continue to push ahead with the facility's opening, while critics vow to keep fighting.
