Video above: Florida appeals to delay operation at Alligator Alcatraz
TALLAHASSY, Fla. (AP) — Florida officials say the Everglades’ controversial state-run immigration detention facility will likely be empty in a few days, even as Republican Ron DeSantis and the federal government fight the judge’s orders to close down “Alligator Alcatraz.” This is according to an email exchange shared with the Associated Press.
In a message sent to South Florida Rabbi Mario Logisman on August 22, related to the provision of pastoral services at the facility, Florida Department of Emergency Management, Kevin Guthrie, Director of Emergency Management, said “it will probably go down to zero within a few days.” The executive assistants who sent the original email to Rojzman and Guthrie both confirmed the truth behind the messages to the AP on Wednesday.
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A spokesman for Guthrie, whose agency oversaw the construction and operation of the site, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The facility was rapidly constructed two months ago and aimed to attract up to 3,000 detainees as part of President Donald Trump’s push for illegally expelling Americans. At one point, it had almost 1,000 detainees, including U.S. Congressman Maxwell Frost, D-Fla. said he was told there were only 300-350 detainees remaining during the tour last week. Three lawsuits have been filed challenging the challenge at the detention centre, including at least 100 detainees at the facility estimated to have been deported. Others were transferred to other immigration detention centres.
News that the last detainee from “Crocodile Alcatraz” could leave the facility within days came less than a week after a federal judge in Miami ordered the detention center to resign from the operation. Florida appealed the decision, and the federal government asked District Judge Kathleen William to hold off the appeal, saying that thousands of beds at the Everglades facility were severely needed due to overcrowding of detention facilities in Florida.
The Mikkosky tribe, whose environmental groups and the lawsuit led to the judge’s decision, opposed the demand. They fought the Everglades facility was needed, particularly as Florida plans to open a second immigration detention facility in North Florida, with the state of being “Desantis called the “Deportation Depot.”
Williams had not controlled the stay request as of Wednesday.
The judge said he hopes that by transporting detainees to other facilities, the facility’s population will decline within 60 days, and that if that happens, fencing, lighting and generators will need to be removed. She writes the state, and the federal defendants write that no one can take anyone other than those already detained in the facility into their property.
Environmental groups and the Mikkoski tribe had argued in their lawsuit that further construction and operations should be suspended until federal and state officials comply with federal environmental laws. Their lawsuit alleges that the facility threatens environmentally sensitive wetlands, home to protected plants and animals, and reverses billions of dollars over decades to restore the environment.
State officials have signed more than $245 million in agreement to build and operate the facility at a lightly used single runway training airport in the middle of the sturdy, remote Everglades. The center officially opened on July 1st.
In their case, civil rights lawyers described “serious issues” at a facility “previously unprecedented in the immigration system.” The detainees were kept unprosecuted for weeks, they disappeared from the Ice online detainee locator and no one in the facility made their initial custody or bond decision, they said.
Detainees also explained that food, unwashed toilets, toilets overflowing with fecal waste, mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere.
