Recent Reports: Florida appeals to delay operation at Alligator Alcatraz
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) – Over the weekend, the federal government asked a Miami judge to order a winding up immigration detention center called “Alligator Alcatraz” that Florida built in the Everglades wilderness and called “Alligator Alcatraz.”
A Homeland Security lawyer said last week that the order from US District Judge Kathleen Williams would disrupt the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration laws. They asked the judge to control their demands by Monday evening.
The request comes as a third lawsuit was filed at the facility, filed Friday by a civil rights group that argued that Florida had no authority to operate an immigration detention center.
In a statement supporting the request for stay, Garrett Lipa, field office director of Immigration Customs Enforcement and Removal Operations in Miami, said 2,000 beds at the Everglades facility were severely needed due to overcrowding of detention facilities in Florida.
“The repeal will undermine the government’s ability to enforce immigration laws, protect public safety, protect national security, and maintain border security,” Lipa said.
The Mikkosky tribe, whose environmental groups and the lawsuit led to the judge’s decision, opposed the demand.
The judge said he hopes the facility’s population will decline within 60 days by relocating detainees to other facilities, 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 that further construction and operations should be stopped 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.
The detention centre was quickly built two months ago at the lightly used single runway training airport in the middle of the Everglades. State officials have signed more than $245 million in a contract to build and operate the facility, which officially opened on July 1.
President Donald Trump toured the facility last month and proposed that it could be a model for future lockups abroad.
It also alleged that last month, a second lawsuit was filed against the state and federal governments over practices at Everglades facilities by civil rights groups, claiming detainees were denied access to the legal system. Another federal judge in Miami dismissed some of the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of Florida, then moved the remaining count against Florida to the nearby central district.
Civil rights groups filed their third lawsuit over practice at a federal court facility in Fort Myers last Friday, seeking a restraining order and a temporary injunction banning Florida and its contractors from acquiring detainees at “Wannial Catraz.” They described “serious issues” at facilities “previously unprecedented in the immigration system.” The detainees were in custody without charge for weeks, but they disappeared from Ice’s online detainee locator, but no one in the facility made their initial custody or bond decisions, civil rights groups said.
“Attorneys often can’t find clients and families can’t find someone they love within Ice’s vast detention system,” the civil rights lawyer said. “Detainees have been prevented from accessing lawyers in a variety of ways. Detainees without lawyers are separated from the usual channels of obtaining lawyers.”
Immigration is a federal issue, and civil rights groups argued that Florida does not have the authority to operate the facility, saying that their lawsuit would be recognized as a class action.
Civil rights lawyers explained harsh conditions at the facility, including flooding, mosquitoes, lack of water, and exposure to factors as punishment. At least 100 people have already been deported from the facility. They said that included several people who were pressured to sign a voluntary removal form without consulting with an attorney.
The administration of Ron DeSantis, a Florida Republican, is preparing to open a second immigration detention facility in a state prison in North Florida, known as the “deportation depot.”
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