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The state of Florida is not responding to requests for comment as activists report construction activity at an abandoned Everglades airstrip at Big Cypress National Preserve, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of Miami.
The construction is part of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' plan to build a detention facility to house immigrants in tents as part of a larger Trump administration push to rid the country of "criminal aliens."
De Santis and his state attorney general, James Uthmeier, have billed the site, which will house up to 1,000 people in tents, as "Alligator Alcatraz" — a play on the local fauna and a reference to the infamous San Francisco Bay facility that US President Donald Trump seeks to revert from national park to prison. Uthmeier and his team produced a video pitching the Florida project on X, referencing the fact that there's "not much" nearby other than "alligators and pythons."
On Thursday, Uthmeier said the facility, which is being built with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds, would be completed in 30 to 60 days. Annual operating costs are currently projected to be about $450 million (€387 million).
Waste of money and energy during hurricane season
De Santis' plan to use hurricane relief funds to build the site has infuriated some. Former Homeland Security Secretary Alex Howard, for instance, blasted the plan, calling it "a grotesque mix of cruelty and political theater."
Howard said, "You don't solve immigration by disappearing people into tents guarded by gators."
"You solve it with lawful processing, humane infrastructure and actual policy — not by staging a $450 million stunt in the middle of hurricane season," he added.
Emergency management funds are being used to pay for the project at the height of hurricane seasonImage: A. Varela/Miami Herald/TNS/picture allianceNative Americans' resistance to Florida detention center on sacred lands
Beyond the questionable redirection of emergency funding and grave concerns over the potential environmental impact of the project on its fragile surroundings, Natives in Florida are also up in arms over the governor's scheme.
The area where the facility is to be built was the home of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, as well as the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.
"Rather than Miccosukee homelands being an uninhabited wasteland for alligators and pythons, as some have suggested, the Big Cypress is the Tribe's traditional homelands. The landscape has protected the Miccosukee and Seminole people for generations," Miccosukee Chairman Talbert Cypress wrote on social media.
"The Big Cypress is part of us," he said, "and we are a part of it."
Another Miccosukee leader, Betty Osceola, wrote in a social media post announcing a demonstration against the site on Saturday: "This place became our refuge in time of war. It provides us a place to continue our culture and traditions. And we need to protect it for our future generations."
Some 15 traditional Miccosukee and Seminole villages remain in Big Cypress, as well as ceremonial and burial grounds and other gathering sites. Locals say the area is "sacred" and that it should be "protected, not destroyed."
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Edited by Sean Sinico
