miccosukee tribe

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A top Florida official says the controversial state-run immigration detention facility in the Everglades will likely be empty in a matter of days, even as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration and the federal government fight a judge’s order to shutter the facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by late October. That’s according to an email exchange shared with the Associated Press.

In a message sent to South Florida Rabbi Mario Rojzman on Aug. 22 related to providing chaplaincy services at the facility, Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie said “we are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days.” Rojzman, and the executive assistant who sent the original email to Guthrie, both confirmed the veracity of the messages to the AP.

A spokesperson for Guthrie, whose agency has overseen the construction and operation of the site, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

News that the last detainee at “Alligator Alcatraz” could leave the facility within days comes less than a week after a federal judge in Miami ordered the detention center to wind down operations, with the last detainee needing to be out within 60 days. The state of Florida appealed the decision, and the federal government asked U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams to put her order on hold pending the appeal, saying that the Everglades facility’s thousands of beds were badly needed since detention facilities in Florida were overcrowded.

The environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe, whose lawsuit led to the judge’s ruling, opposed the request. They disputed that the Everglades facility was needed, especially as Florida plans to open a second immigration detention facility in north Florida that DeSantis has dubbed “Deportation Depot.” During a tour of the South Florida facility last week, U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said he was told that only a fraction of the detention center’s capacity was in use, between 300 and 350 detainees.

Williams had not ruled on the stay request as of Wednesday.

The judge said in her order that she expected the population of the facility to decline within 60 days by transferring detainees to other facilities, and once that happened, fencing, lighting and generators should be removed. She wrote the state and federal defendants can’t bring anyone other than those who are already being detained at the facility onto the property.

Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe had argued in their lawsuit that further construction and operations should be stopped until federal and state officials complied with federal environmental laws. Their lawsuit claimed the facility threatened environmentally sensitive wetlands that are home to protected plants and animals and would reverse billions of dollars spent over decades on environmental restoration.

The detention center was built rapidly two months ago at a lightly used, single-runway training airport in the middle of the rugged and remote Everglades. State officials have signed more than $245 million in contracts for building and operating the facility, which officially opened July 1.

Payne and Schneider write for the Associated Press. Schneider reported from Orlando, Fla.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is racing ahead with construction of a makeshift immigration detention facility at an airstrip in the Everglades over the opposition of Native American leaders who consider the area their sacred ancestral homelands.

A string of portable generators and dump trucks loaded with fill dirt streamed into the site Thursday, according to activist Jessica Namath, who witnessed the activity. The state is plowing ahead with building a compound of heavy-duty tents, trailers and other temporary buildings at the county-owned airfield in the Big Cypress National Preserve, about 45 miles west of downtown Miami.

A spokesperson for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which is helping lead the project, did not respond to requests for comment.

State officials have characterized the site as an ideal place to hold migrants, saying there’s “not much” there other than pythons and alligators.

Indigenous leaders who can trace their roots to the area back thousands of years dispute that — and they’re condemning the state’s plans to build what’s been dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” on their homelands.

For generations, the sweeping wetlands of what is now South Florida have been home to Native peoples who today make up the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, as well as the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.

“Rather than Miccosukee homelands being an uninhabited wasteland for alligators and pythons, as some have suggested, the Big Cypress is the Tribe’s traditional homelands. The landscape has protected the Miccosukee and Seminole people for generations,” Miccosukee Chairman Talbert Cypress wrote in a statement on social media.

There are 15 remaining traditional Miccosukee and Seminole villages in Big Cypress, as well as ceremonial and burial grounds and other gathering sites, Cypress testified before Congress in 2024.

“We live here. Our ancestors fought and died here. They are buried here,” he said. “The Big Cypress is part of us, and we are a part of it.”

Critics have condemned the facility and what they call the state’s apparent reliance on alligators as a security measure as a cruel spectacle, while DeSantis and other state officials have defended it as part of Florida’s muscular efforts to carry out President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Tribal leaders and environmentalists are urging the state to change course, noting that billions of dollars in state and federal funds have been poured into Everglades restoration in recent years, an investment they say is jeopardized by plans to house some 1,000 migrants at the site for an undetermined amount of time.

Indigenous leaders and activists are planning to gather at the site again Saturday to stage a demonstration highlighting why the area is “sacred” and should be “protected, not destroyed.”

“This place became our refuge in time of war. It provides us a place to continue our culture and traditions,” Miccosukee leader Betty Osceola wrote in a social media post announcing the demonstration.

“And we need to protect it for our future generations,” she added.

Payne writes for the Associated Press.