Immigrants

For generations, The Miccosukee Tribe have lived and created a connection with the land that now hosts the Immigration Detention Center known as Alligator Alcatraz.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was given the chance to tour the controversial Immigration Detention Center in the heart of The Everglades. She has introduced legislation to defund the facility.

In a matter of eight days, The State of Florida took a barely used Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport and transformed it into the Immigration Detention Center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

When reports of inhuman conditions at the Everglades Immigration Detention Center were revealed, Rep. Maxwell Frost was one of several congressional leaders who demanded access to inspect the facility.

One major complaint regarding The Immigration Detention Center has been attorney’s being unable to contact their defendants once they have been brought to the facility.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration has already signed at least $245 million in state contracts to set up and run the new immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades. That's according to a public database that tracks state spending. The amount for the site dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" is to be fronted by Florida taxpayers. It's in line with the $450 million a year officials have estimated the facility will cost. The pricetag is a reminder of the investment in public funding that the DeSantis administration is making to help carry out President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda.

Federal officials are “overwhelmed” by the number of undocumented immigrants being locked up as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan because of a detention-bed shortage, according to a key player in Florida’s efforts to assist the White House.The capacity issue is expected to escalate in Florida in the coming weeks as sheriffs and police chiefs ramp up arrests and detention of undocumented immigrants, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Cabinet members, who met Tuesday as the State Board of Immigration Enforcement.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will gain access to personally identifiable information for all of the nation's 79 million Medicaid enrollees. That's according to an agreement obtained by The Associated Press. ICE officials plan to track immigrants who may not be living legally in the United States. The agreement was signed Monday between officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security. Direct access will be given to the addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates as well as the ethnicity and race of all Medicaid enrollees.

A class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges that people held at the Everglades-based immigrant-detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” are being prevented from having access to lawyers and “effectively have no way to contest their detention.”

Citing “significant concerns about environmental degradation” and threats to “traditional and religious ceremonies,” members of the Miccosukee Tribe are trying to join a lawsuit challenging the immigrant-detention center in the Everglades.The facility, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican leaders, neighbors 10 villages that are home to the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida in the Big Cypress National Preserve — including a village 1,000 feet away from one of the detention center’s boundaries — as well as areas where tribal members work and attend school.