Miccosukee

More than 250 conservationists and citizen advocates were in the audience at Audubon Florida’s 2025 Assembly. The state program of the National Audubon Society recognized people the group considers key environmental leaders from Naples to Orlando, and Tampa Bay to Panama City, at the annual event last month.

After forced settlement in the region, The Miccosukee were recognized as a sovereign nation by The United States in 1962 and since, generations developed a deep connection with the land.

Plaintiffs react following judges order to dismantle Alligator Alcatraz over the next 60 days

The battle over “Alligator Alcatraz” came to a head in a Miami-Dade courtroom. Judge Kathleen Williams has granted a temporary restraining order that has stopped any future construction on the site.

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.”