The state of Florida is committed to $245 million toward the construction of “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Everglades immigration detention facility which is due to close in days.
An email obtained by The Associated Press Wednesday from Kevin Guthrie, head of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, indicates the facility will likely soon be empty, after a federal judge ruled it must cease to operate.
Newsweek contacted Governor DeSantis’s office and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment on Thursday via email outside of regular office hours.
Why It Matters
Since his second presidential inauguration in January, President Donald Trump has overseen a crackdown aimed at illegal immigration, increasing spending on immigration enforcement and removing legal impediments to rapid deportations.
Having to close the new Florida detention facility would be a blow to both Governor DeSantis and the Trump administration, and would show that one of the main impediments to White House policy continues to be the courts.
What To Know
Figures published by Florida officials show the state has signed contracts worth at least $245 million to companies for work at the new Florida detention facility, which was constructed by repurposing the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee.
The largest single contract, at $78.5 million, went to Jacksonville based Critical Response Strategies which is responsible for hiring corrections officers, camp managers and IT personnel.
Longview Solutions Group was awarded $25.6 million for site preparation and construction while IT company Gothams has a $21.1 million contract to provide services including access badges and detainee wristbands.
Some of the contract details were later removed from Florida’s public database, sparking criticism from Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani.
Florida officials said some of their spending would be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But the Trump administration has said in a court filing it has had nothing to do with funding of the facility, according to CBS: “Florida is constructing and operating the facility using state funds on state lands under state emergency authority.”
The filing also says: “DHS (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) has not implemented, authorized, directed, or funded Florida’s temporary detention center.”
The facility was expected to cost $450 million to operate each year after construction, according to CNN.
However, in a blow to DeSantis, a federal judge in Miami ruled on August 21 that “Alligator Alcatraz” must be closed down within 60 days, and that no further detainees could be transferred to the facility during this time. Just weeks previously the same judge had ordered a halt on construction work at the camp.
Legal challenges had been brought by a coalition of environmental group and the indigenous Miccosukee Tribe.
What People Are Saying
Speaking about conditions at the facility Florida Representative Debbie Schultz, a Democrat, said: “They are essentially packed into cages, wall-to-wall humans, 32 detainees per cage.”
In an interview with CNN Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said: “The fact that we’re going to have 3,000 people detained in tents, in the Everglades, in the middle of the hot Florida summer, during hurricane season, this is a bad idea all around that needs to be opposed and stopped.”
In a statement previously sent to Newsweek a DHS official said: “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens.
“DHS is complying with this order and moving detainees to other facilities. We will continue to fight tooth-and-nail to remove the worst of the worst from American streets.”
What Happens Next
The Trump administration is expected to continue its crackdown on illegal migrants in the United States in a move that will put pressure on existing immigration detention facilities, and could lead to more being constructed.
https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-wasted-250-million-alligator-alcatraz-it-faces-closure-2120638