Environmentalists and other activists who have aggressively fought to shut down Alligator Alcatraz cheered the news that it could finally happen.
After news broke Thursday, May 7, that state and federal officials may be considering closing down the detention center for illegal immigrants, due to the high operating costs, Friends of the Everglades urged them in a post on Meta (Facebook), to “Shut It Down” for reasons of its own.
“We are not taking our foot off the gas until ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is officially closed and the harm to the Everglades has been undone,” the group stated.
The nonprofit environmental group continued: “We have been pushing to stop harm at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ since Gov. DeSantis and his appointee, Attorney General James Uthmeier, announced it last summer with Kristi Noem and other federal officials. Our legal fight is moving forward, and we have strong claims to bring when we soon return to federal district court in Miami.”
Friends of the Everglades, along with partners such as the Center for Biological Diversity and the Miccosukee Tribe, have filed multiple lawsuits in an attempt to shut down the controversial immigration detention center in the Everglades, alleging illegal construction and environmental damage, among other claims.
In its post, Friends of the Everglades suggested the unresolved lawsuits likely has something to do with government talks of closing the detention center.
The group stated: “The evidence our public records suit against Florida revealed – immense cost, harm to the surrounding Everglades, and lack of adherence to our bedrock environmental laws – brought pressure to close the facility.”
Further, the group thanked those who have worked alongside it to “demand an end to this dark chapter in Everglades history.”
“No airports, no rock mines, no prisons. Only Everglades,” the group concluded in its post.
In a statement, Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, reiterated the group’s thoughts shared on social media.
“The only acceptable remedy is shutting down Alligator Alcatraz and full remediation of the harm inflicted,” she said.
In a statement, Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said: “This destructive detention camp in the middle of the Everglades should have never been built, but I’m glad it may finally shut down. Until it does, we’re going to fight on in district court with everything we’ve got.”
She continued: “This destructive and pointless project has harmed some of Florida’s most vulnerable plants and animals and upended the lives of too many people. To even begin to set things right for Big Cypress and the Everglades, we’ll spare no effort to shut the facility down and restore the site so nothing like this disaster ever happens again.”
Tania Galloni, managing attorney at Earthjustice, echoed those sentiments in a statement of her own.
“We will not rest until this harmful facility is shut down. If the state and federal governments had complied with environmental law, this facility would never have come to be. And if they don’t finally come to their senses, we are prepared to continue our battle in federal court to put an end to this madness.”
Paul J. Schwiep, an attorney with Coffey Burlington and counsel for Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, chimed in.
“The facility was an impractical and ill-conceived political stunt from the outset,” he said in a statement. “The environmental damage it has caused must now be fully evaluated and remedied to ensure that this uniquely sensitive area is protected going forward.”
He continued: “Since we first challenged this detention center last summer, it was clear that this was a federal project and the defendants are now effectively waving the white flag. We intend to closely monitor the wind-down process to ensure they fully remediate the environmental harms caused by this mean-spirited and costly boondoggle.”
In a statement, Noelle Damico, director of social justice at the Workers Circle, a national Jewish Social Justice organization that has been organizing vigils in opposition, outside of Alligator Alcatraz for 40 consecutive weeks, said: “Alligator Alcatraz is too expensive, and its cost is both financial and moral.”
She continued: “The priorities of the DeSantis Administration and too many Florida lawmakers are clear. They are choosing the torture of immigrants ‘arrested for working’ over public education for Florida’s children and natural disaster protection for Florida families. They are making every Florida taxpayer — citizen and immigrant alike — complicit in their corrupt, cruel scheme that is separating families, terrorizing communities, and undermining the rule of law.”
The group’s vigils have been supported by many organizations. The stated purpose of the vigils is to fight for Alligator Alcatraz’s closure, to denounce the inhumane conditions, to insist on Constitutional rights for all, to end the vicious ICE abductions, detentions and deportations of neighbors, friends and family.
Workers Circle plans to continue the vigils until the detention center is shut down.The group stated: “Alligator Alcatraz is immoral, inhumane and un-American. It is also a blueprint for detention across the nation. If this center is finally closed, our nation must end the replication of this model elsewhere and a full investigation must be undertaken into the corruption, abuse, and profiteering that has happened so that appropriate authorities are held accountable.”
In a statement, Sam Lester, Immigrants’ Rights Staff Attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, agreed the detention center should have never opened in the first place.
“This hastily constructed, makeshift facility has caused irreparable harm to thousands of people and their families. From inhumane conditions and medical neglect to the unlawful denial of access to legal counsel, this cruel facility has violated basic standards of dignity and due process from the start,” he said.
He continued: “Taxpayer dollars should never fund facilities that inflict harm while denying people their fundamental rights and basic human needs. While we welcome reports that this center may finally be shut down, accountability cannot end there. We remain deeply concerned that detained people could be transferred to other ICE detention facilities with similarly horrific records of abuse and rights violations. That is why our work must continue. We remain committed to maintaining vigilant oversight of how people are treated in detention facilities across Florida.”
Carmen Iguina Gonzalez, deputy director for immigration detention at the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, added that since the detention center opened it has become “notorious for the denial of access to counsel, horrific conditions, and the reckless destruction of fragile wetlands.”
“It’s past time that it was shut down,”she said. “Still, these conditions are not unique to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ and reflect systemic patterns of abuse at other ICE detention facilities across the country. We remain concerned about the possibility of detained people being transferred to other ICE detention facilities with track records of horrific conditions and rights violations.”
The Florida Immigrant Coalition said it hasn’t received an official confirmation on a closure, nor has it seen mass transfers of detainees related to recent rumors of closure.
“The Administration has been trying to backtrack from its aggressive immigration enforcement tactics,” FLIC spokesperson Thomas Kennedy told The News-Press & Naples Daily News, adding that political backlash and growing criticism from immigrant communities and elected officials may be contributing factors.
Kennedy also argued the facility is financially unsustainable, saying officials initially indicated the operation would be funded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but that emergency response funding has instead been tapped to support it.
“There’s been so much grift put into this,” Kennedy said. “This is unsustainable.”
The strong and passionate reactions came after the New York Times reported, based on unnamed sources, that federal and state officials were preliminarily discussing shutting down the detention center, located between Miami and Naples, which costs about $1 million per day to operate.
The Homeland Security Department said Thursday that it is not seeking immediate closure of the site.
At a Lakeland press conference May 7, DeSantis said DHS hasn’t “said they want to wind it down.” But the governor still left the door open.
“This was always designed to be temporary,” DeSantis said of Alligator Alcatraz. “It served a good purpose. We’re totally willing to continue that happening in the future.”
In an email after the New York Times story broke about a possible closure, John Mullins, a spokesman for Collier County – in which the detention center is located – said: “The County has not been informed of any closure of the illegal immigration detention facility.”
Curt Anderson, a Policy and Politics Reporter for The USA TODAY NETWORK-FLORIDA, contributed to this story.
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Mickenzie Hannon is a watchdog reporter for The News-Press and Naples Daily News, covering Collier and Lee counties. Contact her at 239-435-3423 or mhannon@gannett.com.
Laura Layden is a senior business and government reporter. Reach her by email at laura.layden@naplesnews.com.
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This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Talks of Alligator Alcatraz closure in the Everglades cheered by activists
Reporting by Laura Layden and Mickenzie Hannon, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Naples Daily News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
