Related: Republicans, Democrats clash accounts in Wannial Cutraz
TALLAHASSY, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration left many local officials at the Immigration Detention Center ascended from the Everglades’ isolated runway with the laws and regulations of contractors and deputies while relying on emails obtained by the Associated Press Show, executive orders to seize the land.
Republican, Democratic state leaders clash on Wannial Cutraz account
The email shows that local officials in southwestern Florida are still trying to chase “rumors” about the vast “Wannial Catraz” facility planned for the county.
“Not cool!” A local official told the director of a state agency he was at the forefront of construction.
More than 100 emails dated July 21 to July 1 were obtained through public records requests, highlighting the furious speed at which the governor’s team built the facility and the extent to which local officials were blinded by plans for tents and trailers arranged between Collier County.
The executive order, originally signed by a Republican governor, signed by a Republican governor in 2023 and extended ever since, accelerated the project, allowing the state to seize county-owned land and avoid the rules of what critics called power abuse. The order was granted to the state sweep agency to suspend “any law, rule, or order” that is deemed to delay the state’s response to an “emergency.”
Desantis representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The runway, known as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, is approximately 45 miles (72 km) west of downtown Miami. It is located within Collier County, but owned and managed by nearby Miami-Dade County. The AP requested similar records from Miami-Dade County, which is still processing the request.
For Desantis and other state officials, the infamous federal prisons were intended as deterrents, and then they built and named the facility in remote locations. It’s another indication that President Donald Trump’s administration and his allies are relying on horrifying tactics to pressure those in the country to leave illegally.
Everglades detention center? “I’ve never heard of that.”
Collier County Commissioner Rick Locastro appears to have been the first to hear about the proposal after another county official emailed him on June 21.
“Has citizens been asking about the proposed “detention centre” at the Everglades? ” Locastro wrote to county manager Amy Patterson and other staff. “I’ve never heard of that… am I missing something?”
“We are unaware of the land use petition proposing a detention center for the Everglades. We will check with the intake team, but we don’t think such a proposal was received by zoning,” replied Michael Bosi, director of planning and zoning for the county.
Environmental groups then filed a federal lawsuit, alleging that the state illegally circumvented federal and state laws in building the facility.
In fact, Locastro was included in a June 21 email from state officials who announced their intention to purchase the airfield. Locastro sits on the county board of trustees, but he doesn’t lead it and his district does not include a runway. He forwarded the message to the county lawyer and said, “Don’t you know why they’re sending this to me?”
In the email, Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Department of Emergency Management, which built the detention center, said the state intended to “work in partnership” with the county. The message referenced an executive order on illegal immigration, but did not specify how the state would like to use the site, except for “future emergency response, air logistics, and staging operations.”
The next day, Collier County Emergency Management Director Dan Summers wrote briefings for the county manager and other local officials.
Summers knew the location well after conducting a detailed site survey several years ago.
“Infrastructure, well, nothing except a barn of some equipment and a mobile home office… (soaked in wet mosquitoes and mosquitoes),” Summers writes.
FDEM told Summers that “no mobilization or action plans have been implemented at this time” while the agency was investigating the runway. Summers wrote.
The emergency supervisor said the lack of information was “not cool.”
By June 23, Summers was racing the following day to prepare a presentation for the county commission meeting. He shot down an email to FDEM Director Kevin Guthrie seeking basic facts confirmation regarding the airfield and detention facility planning.
“Is that in the plan, or will the actual operation set be opened?” Summers asked. “Rumours today are in operation…???”
In fact, the agency had already coordinated the construction of the site, saying it was already “on the scene with the vendor,” replied Ian Guidicelli, chief of the FDEM Bureau.
“It’s not cool! It wasn’t relayed to me last week or the weekend,” Summers replied, adding that he has a “egg in my face” with a Collier County Sheriff’s Office and a committee of the county board. “It’s a Collier County site. I’m on your team. What about coordination courtesy?”
On the evening of June 23, FDEM officially notified Miami-Dade County, seized the county-owned land and built a detention center under the emergency granted by executive order.
The facility’s plans sparked concern among first responders in Collier County. Collier County questioned which agency would be responsible if an emergency attacks the scene.
Discussions on this issue were sometimes tense. Local fire chief Chris Wolf wrote a letter to the county’s director of emergency medical services and other officials on June 25th.
“Not our circus, not our monkeys.”
Summers, director of emergency management, repeatedly contacted FDEM, saying, “I’ll eliminate some of the confusion” around the site.
As he and other county officials were waiting for details from Tallahassee, they sought information from the local news outlet and shared a link to their own stories.
“They should come,” Summers wrote to the county’s director of communications, John Mullins, in response to a news article, “Since cricket from the tally at this point.”
Wanting to manage the hit to the county’s tourism industry, local officials have kept close tabs on media coverage at the facility, watching news spread rapidly from local newspapers in southwestern Florida to New York Times and international news sites such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, the UK, Germany and Switzerland.
As questions from reporters and complaints from related residents were flowing, local officials lined up legal documents to show that the airfield was not their fault.
In an email chain labelled “Not our monkeys, not our circus…” County Attorney Jeffrey Kratzkow wrote to the county manager:
Meanwhile, construction on the site was first tilled, and trucks arrived around the clock carrying portable toilets, asphalt and construction materials. Some of the companies that had subtracted millions of dollars for their work were companies whose owners generously donated to Desantis and other Republicans.
On July 1, just 10 days after Collier County first blew the plan, the state officially opened the facility, welcoming DeSantis, Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem and other state and national officials on the tour.
County emergency management staff fired an email in the summer, asking for it to be included in site visits to the facility.
“Absolutely,” Summers replied. “After the president’s visit and some of the chaos settlements on the premises, we’ll take you there…”
Kate Payne is a legion of the Associated Press/America Statehouse News Initiative report. Report for America is a non-profit, national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on infiltrated issues.
