TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The administration of the Florida Republican government, Ron DeSantis, apparently preparing to build a second immigration detention center, is awarding at least one contract for what is labeled “North Detention Facility” in state records.
The site will be built on an isolated airfield in the Florida Everglades and add the capacity of the state’s first detention facility called “Alligator Alcatraz.” Already, state officials have stolen more than $245 million in contracts for the facility, which officially opened on July 1.
Florida is planning to build a second detention center at the Florida National Guard training center, known as Camp Branding, about 27 miles (43 km) southwest of downtown Jacksonville, but DeSantis says the state is waiting for its deportation from its South Florida facility before it builds its camp branding site.
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Dasantis said last month that he “looks forward to the increase in cadence” of deportation, calling the state “ready, happy, capable.”
Civil rights advocates and the Environmental Group filed a lawsuit against the Everglades facility. There, detainees are forced to go without proper food and medical care, are prohibited from meeting with lawyers, held without charges, and are unable to hear the case in federal immigration courts.
President Donald Trump has touted the harshness and remoteness of the facility as a “worst and worst” deserves the facility, but Homeland Security’s Department of Homeland Security Christa Noem said the South Florida Detention Center serves as a model for other state-owned facilities for immigration.
Planning of “Northern Detention Facility”
The Florida Department of Emergency Management, the state agency that built the Everglades facility, awarded the Portable Emergency Response Weather Service a $39,000 contract for what is known as a “North Detention Facility,” according to records in the state’s public contract database. The device allows for “real-time weather monitoring and safety to alert staff.”
The deal came with contracts as the state approached its peak hurricane season, with heavy rain and extreme heat smashing parts of Florida. Immigration advocates and environmentalists raised many concerns about the Everglades facility, a remote compound of sturdy tents and trailers that brought workers and contractors together in a few days.
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Last week, FDEM significantly compiled a draft emergency evacuation plan for what the document called the “South Florida Detention Facility.” Under Florida law that allows state agencies to keep emergency plans secret, the entire section related to detainee transport, evacuation and relocation procedures have been blacked out. Despite the Associated Press’s request for multiple public records, the department has not developed other evacuation plans, environmental impact studies, or institutional analysis of facilities.
When asked by a reporter on July 25, FDEM executive director Kevin Guthrie said it was built to withstand a Category 2 hurricane packing up to 110 miles of wind.
“I promise that hurricanes are covering hurricane things,” Guthrie said.
