ORLANDO, FLORIDA– Environmental groups say the timing of the expected closure of an immigration detention center in Florida’s central Everglades, likely in the next month or two, is not a coincidence because it will come… As a lawsuit for them Its existence is being challenged by a federal judge who previously ordered its closure.
Federal Court of Appeal Decided last month To keep the detention center open aka “Alligator Alcatraz“, for the time being, blocking the lower court’s decision ordering it to end operations. But the case was sent back to a lower court judge who now has jurisdiction over the suit as litigation continues over the facility’s fate.
“Knowing that the same district judge who previously ordered the operation will soon resume oversight — the defendants are now effectively waving the white flag,” said Paul Schoep, an attorney for the environmental groups that sued, saying the construction of the facility did not undergo the required environmental review.
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was asked about the future of the state-run facility and its costs on Wednesday, he said he had not received any “official word” that federal authorities would stop sending detainees to the detention center.
But vendors who supply the facility and help run it have been told the closure could be as soon as next month, according to reports by The New York Times and CBS News Miami on Tuesday. The Florida Department of Emergency Management, which runs the detention center, did not respond to an email inquiry on Wednesday. The Republican governor’s press secretary, Molly Best, referred questions about the facility to the state’s emergency management agency.
“We didn’t build any permanent facilities there because we knew it would be temporary,” DeSantis said Wednesday at a news conference in Titusville, Florida.
The DeSantis administration opened the facility last July to support the immigration crackdown by the administration of President Donald Trump, who visited the detention center last summer. Lawyer for two detainees The guards were charged Severe beatings and pepper spraying of detainees. Other detainees He said Worms appear in food, toilets don’t flush, and mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere.
“This monument to cruelty, waste and abuse of environmental and tribal lands was never meant to be built,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, said Tuesday.
The Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity sued state and federal officials shortly after the facility opened, alleging that the remote Everglades airstrip site did not receive the proper environmental review required by federal law before it was turned into an immigration detention center. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami agreed Ordered in August The facility must end its operations within two months.
The appeals court blocked the order, saying the Florida-run facility was not under federal control and did not need to comply with federal law requiring an environmental impact review.
But Schoep said the appeals court made clear that once Florida gets federal compensation for the facility, it will have to comply with federal environmental law.
DeSantis said Tuesday that the state expects the federal government to reimburse the state $608 million, which has already been approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
He added: “There are no negotiations on that.”
___
Follow Mike Schneider on the Bluesky social media platform: @mikeysid.bsky.social.