COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. – Another powerful group has petitioned to join a federal lawsuit to shut down the Everglades migrant detention camp known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” given that the state has given no end date, and no assurances that this will not become a permanent facility.
The Miccosukee asserts the facility is on protected ancestral lands that have been exploited, that are already having a detrimental impact to the fragile ecosystem of the surrounding wetlands.
“My mother would bring us out here, we used to come here and swim all the time,” said Miccosukee tribal activist Betty Osceola. “This is the type of landscape that you’ll see. You would see up to the airstrip.”
The airstrip is a partially built runway in the middle of the Everglades, that in the late 1960s was supposed to be part the world’s largest airport until strong opposition by environmentalists and the indigenous people of the land, the Seminoles and Miccosukees, shut the project down.
A fight that led to the conservation of the swamp and, in 1974, the establishment of Big Cypress National Preserve, our nation’s first.
“I wish that runway would go away,” said Osceola. “I wish we could all come together and agree that we need to return it back to the natural state and just have that runway go away. That would be my dream.”
Osceola and the Miccosukees have now filed a motion to join a lawsuit against the state and the federal government over the makeshift immigrant detention camp that went up at record speed on that very same runway.
“This is a sacred place, a place of healing,” she said.
The suit accused the government of going rogue, ignoring regulations, and violating the National Environmental Protection Act in order to hastily build the facility.
Eve Samples is the executive director of the nonprofit Friends of the Everglades, which was founded by eco champion Marjory Stoneman Douglas in 1969 to combat the proposed jetport.
Now, 56 years later, Samples says history is repeating itself.
“There’s been zero environmental impact analysis for this site,” she said. “Our lawsuit asks for things to be put on hold, activity to be halted at the site, so that this law can be complied with, an environmental impact analysis can be done. There are so many concerning impacts. We have thousands of people at the site. We have traffic, we have air concerns, we have clean water concerns.”
The state has pushed back, but despite the claims from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that “the impact will be zero,” recent aerial photography shows an 11-acre patch of freshly paved asphalt that Samples says wasn’t there before.
“Whenever you pave over an area that wasn’t previously paved in the Everglades, it has effects on water,” she said.
Rain can cause runoff from generator fuel, mosquito spray and pollutants from all the excess traffic that can leach into the sensitive wetlands, and though human waste is being trucked away daily from the site, Samples says there are risks of spills.
“All of that needs to be evaluated by the court,” she said. “That’s the point.”
The Florida Department of Emergency Management maintains the recently paved 11 acres was actually an old patch of concrete overgrown with grass and covered by dirt, but conservationists dispute that.
Soil expert Christopher McVoy analyzed the recent photos and compared them to satellite images dating back to 1995.
McVoy says not one photo reveals any paved concrete, but rather shows lines caused by frequent mowing.
“No, I’m not buying it,” he said. “A: There’s not a lot of soil blowing around in this area. B: We have intense rainfalls, which is going to wash anything off. Anything that would grow on a cement pad is not going to be big enough to bother mowing for years and years and years and years.”
Then there’s all the light pollution caused by the stadium-style lighting that now floods the once International Dark Sky park, one of the last remaining six in the country.
“I just saw something from a pilot that said you could see it last night from 35 miles away,” said McVoy. “Thirty-five miles away, that’s a lot of light.”
Light Osceola says is already impacting all the endangered wildlife there.
“There’s a family of panthers out here, a population,” she said. “Now their lives are disrupted. We just lost one earlier this month. That’s the tenth panther we lost this year alone.”
It’s not just the panthers. Osceola warns this could disrupt all our lives.
The Everglades is the source of drinking water for eight million South Floridians. The kidneys of Florida naturally filter out pollutants before sending fresh water down to Florida Bay.
It’s all connected, so there is so much at stake.
“We need to maintain these natural spaces because saving the Everglades here in Florida is saving us,” said Osceola. “Without the Everglades, we would not be here.”
So far, federal district judge Jose Martinez has yet to rule on the June 27 motion for an injunction to halt all operations at the camp.
Friends of the Everglades are asking the judge to rule by Friday or pitch the case down to a magistrate judge. The group has now also filed another intent to sue, accusing state and federal agencies of unlawfully bypassing Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act protections.
Statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS):
“ICE does not manage this facility. The facility is managed by the State of Florida through the Division of Emergency Management. Florida has National Guard officials operating under 287(g) and trained to perform detention functions.
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
Local 10 also reached out to the governor’s office for an interview, and they responded by referencing to past comments made by DeSantis that can be found by clicking here, starting at the 47:40 mark.
Analysis of pre-existing cement pad assertion:
Read the Friends of the Everglades lawsuit and Miccosukee’s petition to join it below: