Miccosukee

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.

Tribal leader: 'Our tribe is small, any hardship to one family is felt by all'

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.

As they continue to fight a legal effort by environmental groups to block an immigrant-detention center in the Everglades, lawyers for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration argued Monday that the lawsuit was filed in the wrong federal-court district.Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity are seeking a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction to stop state and federal officials from adding more detainees and additional construction at the remote facility, which the state built adjacent to an airstrip known as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.

A different kind of demonstration was held Saturday in the shadow of the Everglades immigration detention center called Alligator Alcatraz. It was a demonstration of faith and hope — faith encompassing Native Indian beliefs as well as modern religious tenets and hope that change could come.

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.

The National Park Service in conjunction with the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and the Bureau of Indian Affairs will be conducting a joint prescribed fire operation in late January and continuing through February. The 151,434-acre Boundary Prescribed Fire Project — sited south of U.S. 41 between mile markers 36 and 44, including the Miccosukee Reserved Area — removes jurisdictional boundaries to complete prescribed burns with the assistance of federal, Tribal, state and local resources.

It's that time of year when folks around Florida gather around the table for Thanksgiving. But for some Native American communities, the holiday looks a little different these days.