COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. — Battle lines were drawn in Miami federal court Wednesday as the state of Florida is trying to move a lawsuit filed by environmental groups over the migrant detention camp in the Everglades out of the Southern District.
Judge Kathleen Williams heard arguments from both sides but will make her ruling next week.
At issue is whether the state violated federal laws when it built the camp without first studying what impact it would have on the Everglades.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis doubled down recently on his claim that the hastily built migrant detention center in the middle of the Everglades is having no impact on the surrounding fragile wetlands that make up Big Cypress National Preserve.
But environmental advocates are pushing back just as hard.
“The state, acting with the federal government, didn’t analyze the harm that could be caused here,” said Friends of the Everglades Executive Director Eve Samples.
That is now the basis of the federal lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades, together with the Center for Biological Diversity, accusing the state and federal government of bulldozing over National Environmental Policy Act regulations that require an impact study before taking any management action on protected public lands.
“We have documented impact, we have documented harm,” said Samples.
She pointed to documented light pollution that is now flooding the once dark sky park, potentially harming endangered species like the Florida panther, which is known to roam there.
“It’s extremely concerning, and we’re hearing from people of all political stripes who don’t like what’s happening,” Samples said.
There’s also about 20 acres of new pavement that environmentalists say was not there before.
“I went back and looked at aerial photography,” said Christopher McVoy, Doctor of Soil Physics. “If you go back far enough, you should be able to see it. You can’t.”
The camp was rapidly built in just eight days and it now has a reported capacity to house some 2,000 detainees.
It’s on a once idle air strip that was mostly used for training and practice flights after plans to turn the area into the world’s largest airport were shut down in 1970 due to strong opposition by environmentalists and the indigenous people of this land, the Seminoles and Miccosukees. The Miccosukees have now officially joined the federal lawsuit.
“Nobody is supposed to develop here,” said Miccosukee tribal activist Betty Osceola. “I thought the preserve was going to stop this type of activity.”
At a news conference Friday, Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie dismissed concerns about the environment and claimed the site is now actually having less of an impact.
“All of a sudden, the governor is tearing up the environment? There were over 100 flights a day coming in and out of this facility,” said Guthrie
Data from the flight tracking site Flight Aware shows that since 2023, there’s only been an average of five departures and arrivals per day.
In 2015, Greg Chin, a county aviation spokesperson, told the Miami Herald the airstrip only saw an average of 12 landings and take offs a day.
Though Chin points to recent data that does show an uptick in takeoffs and landings from November 2024 to June of this year – with an average of 150 operations per day – this means if the same aircraft takes off and lands multiple times in one day, it counts towards the daily total.
Additionally, in 2023, the airstrip manager, who did not want to be identified, added the following.
“We don’t have anything here to support the need to come in here and get fuel or maintenance,” he said. “This is just purely touch-and-go approach.”
Footage Local 10 News found from two years ago shows what activity actually used to look like. Before, it was a virtual ghost town compared to now.
But still, the state claims that with thousands of people living there, with all the traffic and all the noise, and all of that equipment, there’s zero impact on the environment.
“You got 5,000 gallons of jet fuel on site,” said DeSantis.
Environmentalists are not buying it.
“It’s a nice theory, and if (the state) had demonstrated that they have figured out a way to magically appear with 4,000 to 7,000 people here now with zero impact, that would be cool,” said McVoy. “I would be happy to look at that analysis and review it. That was not done.”
But the concern goes beyond the immediate.
The concern is, the longer the detention camp is allowed to continue, the wider it opens the door for possible future development.
“Someone’s going to have this bright idea of what else they need to do in the area,” said Miccosukee tribal activist Betty Osceola. “That’s what is very scary.”
There’s a risk that a dangerous zoning precedent could be set that would forever disrupt the wildspace that is supposed to be protected by federal law.
“This place belongs to all of us,” said Samples. “That’s why this was created as the country’s first National Preserve, Big Cypress National Preserve, so all of us have an investment in this. And there’s no reason that this facility should be operating here.”
Since the news conference last Friday, Local 10 News has repeatedly reached out to the state requesting any documentation to back up the claims made during the conference. They have yet to respond as of the time of this story’s publication.
We also asked the state to share what their master plan was, should a hurricane threaten the camp, and again, no response yet, but a heavily redacted disaster plan was shared with the Orlando Sentinel on Wednesday night.
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