Immigration

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.”

President Donald Trump said that Alligator Alcatraz will house “some of the most vicious people on the planet”. However, reports have shown the opposite.

Government attorneys argued in court that a legal challenge to a hastily-built immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades was filed in the wrong jurisdiction. Wednesday's hearing was the first of two hearings over the legality of "Alligator Alcatraz" in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups. Federal and state government attorneys argue that even though the property is owned by Miami-Dade County, Florida's southern district is the wrong venue for the lawsuit since the detention center is located in neighboring Collier County, which is in the state's middle district. Any decision by the judge could influence another lawsuit over the center brought by civil rights groups.

DeSantis assured Alligator Alcatraz would have zero impact on the Everglades. However, light pollution and additional construction on the site has led to multiple lawsuits to shut the facility down.

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.

Environmentalists warn that each day Alligator Alcatraz remains up and running is one more day of irreparable damage to the Everglades, and area that is North America’s only subtropical wilderness and home to thousands of native plants and animal species and dozens of which are endangered or threatened.

Attorneys for the state Friday opposed an effort by the Miccosukee Tribe to join a lawsuit challenging an immigrant-detention center in the Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” The tribe on July 14 filed a motion seeking to intervene in the lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, which allege that state and federal officials did not comply with a law requiring that an environmental impact study be performed before developing the detention center.

Hurricane Ian slammed Lee County with treacherous storm surge, damaging nearly 50,000 homes, killing 150 people and causing a record $112 billion in property damage after making landfall on Sept. 28, 2022.Some of the victims got hit by more than just the storm.In early 2023, as lawsuits against a company that helped clean up the damage were piling up in Lee County, Gov. DeSantis began doling out massive contracts to the Canadian-owned company based in Texas, putting the company accused of ripping off hurricane victims in charge of some of the state’s hurricane relief efforts. In total, the governor’s office has awarded that company $200 million in state contracts and purchase orders with little oversight, competitive bids, or other safeguards in place.