Sides Gear Up for Continued ‘Alcatraz’ Fight

By Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t backing away from a controversial immigrant-detention center in the Everglades after a federal judge ordered his administration to begin dismantling the facility, as environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe gear up for the next stage of the legal battle.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction preventing additional construction and bringing additional detainees to the complex, which the state has dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” Williams also ordered the removal within 60 days of temporary fencing, detention-center lighting and such things as generators.

DeSantis’ lawyers quickly filed a notice of appealing Williams ruling to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

DeSantis, speaking to reporters Friday morning, shrugged off Williams’ decision.

“We knew the minute this judge got the case, we knew exactly what she was going to do. This is not anything that was unexpected, but we will make sure to get the job done in the end,” he said.

The lawsuit, filed by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity and joined by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, alleges that the DeSantis and Trump administrations failed to comply with a federal law that required an environmental-impact study before construction of the facility, which is adjacent to a remote airstrip known as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.

The tribe argued that the detention facility threatens its “traditional and religious ceremonies” in the surrounding Big Cypress National Preserve, where members have lived “since time immemorial.” The detention facility “is located in the heart of the tribe’s ancestral homelands where hundreds, if not thousands, of protected ceremonial and religious sites are located,” the tribe’s lawyers argued in a court document.

Curtis Osceola, an attorney who is senior policy adviser to tribal Chairman Talbert Cypress, told reporters Friday that the Miccosukees were “very, very excited and happy” with Williams’ order.

“We are still concerned because the psychic harm, the mental trauma that our children and our young adults are going to have to live with because of the imposition of this facility on their homelands will be felt for generations,” Osceola said.

Williams’ ruling said that the plaintiffs “identify a myriad of risks from the project to the wetlands and endangered species whose habitats include the area” around the facility.

“Plaintiffs also proved that runoff and wastewater discharge from the camp risks polluting the water supply in the Miccosukee Reserved Area — where 80 percent of tribe members reside — just a few miles downstream” from the facility “and beyond,” the judge’s order said.

The tribe also showed “ongoing harms” to its “enjoyment of the preserved areas due to the project’s industrial lighting, noise, traffic and security perimeter,” she added.

Williams also pointed to other issues that affected the tribe, including fencing that has cut off entry points to the preserve.

Tribal members “have lost access to the off-road trails leading into the BCNP (Big Cypress National Preserve) lands for hunting and other activities due to the camp’s operations … Furthermore, tribal members had previously harvested plants from the areas directly adjacent to the … site for ceremonial and medicinal purposes, but the camp’s new human activity erodes the cultural significance of the plant life,” Williams wrote.

Osceola said the tribe wasn’t consulted in the run-up to the facility’s construction.

The judge’s order “really vindicates the tribe’s rights, and we will continue to defend our sovereignty and our homelands,” Osceola said Friday. “Chairman Cypress wanted me to add that, when it comes to our homelands, there is no compromise and we will continue to fight.”

Osceola acknowledged that the state is appealing Williams’ decision.

“We are prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court. This is not the first time the tribe has been in a fight like this. It probably won’t be the last, but we are prepared to fight and we are prepared to win,” he added.

The lawsuit, filed in the federal Southern District of Florida, alleges violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, a federal law that requires evaluating potential environmental impacts before such a project can move forward. Part of that process requires time to allow members of the public to make comments on potential projects.

The state’s decision to move forward with the complex without conducting an environmental study was intended “to avoid all that and to make a statement on immigration,” Osceola said.

“Instead what they did was, made a bold statement about how we are willing to sacrifice the government for politics. I think that was something that really stood out to the tribe and something that we had to fight,” he added.

DeSantis recently announced that his administration intends to convert a mothballed prison in Baker County into a second detention center as part of the state’s efforts to support President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The governor’s office did not immediately respond when asked whether the state planned to comply with Williams’ order while the appeal is being considered.

Osceola questioned why the facility was located in the Everglades.

“No one could answer that clearly from the government. … It was pretty obvious to all of us in the room, the plaintiffs at least, there was no explanation other than this was a publicity stunt,” he said.

Williams ordered the state to halt activities at the facility within 60 days, saying the two-month “attrition” of detainees would allow the state “time to remove the newly installed fencing, lighting, and other fixtures and utilities apparatus in a safe, humane, and responsible manner.”

Her order also allowed housing and detention dorms to “remain and be maintained to prevent deterioration or damage.” She said the state failed to study alternatives to the Everglades site, as required by the federal law.

Paul Schwiep, an attorney who represents the environmental groups, called Williams’ ruling an important “first step” in the fight over the Everglades complex.

“Any rational NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) analysis of the alternatives to this site and the impacts that this site poses would conclude it makes no sense to build a 5,000-person detention center in the heart of the Everglades. There are other alternatives, as the governor has already recognized,” Schwiep said.