Detainees at the South Florida immigration detention facility dubbed Alligator Alcatraz have been removed amid reports of an impending shutdown, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But the future of the facility remains uncertain.
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A spokesperson for ICE said in a statement Wednesday that the removal was for the “safety” of detainees at the facility, located in an isolated area in the Everglades between Miami-Dade and Collier counties, as hurricane season begins.
“As we enter into hurricane season, ICE and the state of Florida have moved illegal aliens from the soft sided facility. For the safety of the illegal alien detainees, we transferred them to other facilities,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The detention center opened nearly a year ago, in the middle of the last hurricane season. Critics raised safety concerns at the time, but no detainees were removed.
Now, critics of the facility say that the government is intentionally leaving the public in the dark about whether the facility is shutting down for good.
“What’s happening now is indicative of how the past year has unfolded,” Eve Samples, the executive director of Friends of the Everglades, said at a virtual news conference on Wednesday. “Alligator Alcatraz was planned in secret, built in secret, operated in secret and now apparently the winding down is conducted in secret.”
Friends of the Everglades is one of multiple environmental groups that sued the state over the facility, over concerns for the local environment, saying that state officials failed to obtain an environmental impact review prior to its construction.
Jessica Namath, the founder of Floridians for Public Lands, attended the virtual news conference live from outside of the facility. Despite government officials’ comments, Namath said it appeared to be “business as usual” there Wednesday, though slightly slower than other days she had been at the site.
“They’re bringing in jet fuel and buses are going in and out and you have hundreds of cars driving on and off site,” she said. “And so, again, I think we’re left with more questions than answers.”
The decision to move the detainees comes after multiple reports indicating that the facility would soon close due to high costs, reports that appear to contradict the ICE statements about safety during hurricane season.
Last month, the New York Times reported that officials told vendors the facility was closing and that detainees would be moved out at the beginning of June. The facility would be dismantled in the weeks following, according to the report.
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The announcement came shortly after the Times reported that the Department of Homeland Security was in talks with Florida officials about closing down the facility due to the cost of operating it. Florida has spent more than $1 million a day to run the center, according to public records obtained by the environmental groups in their lawsuit.
In May, the Florida Tributary reported that the federal government approved a $58.2 million payment, a partial reimbursement of the $608 million the state had spent by that time.
The facility has been plagued by controversy since it opened nearly one year ago. Detainees reported bug-infested food, beatings, and overflowing toilets, among other conditions, according to reports.
Renata Castro, an immigration attorney with offices in Coral Springs and Orlando, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Wednesday that she thought it was unlikely the government would choose to reopen the facility due to approaching midterm elections.
“I think that the public outcry in the form of votes, one way or another, will really dictate how Floridians see the absolute waste of money that was Alcatraz,” she said. “If you make a bad purchase as a household do you insist on that subscription or do you just cut your losses and put the money elsewhere?”
The government has not said where the relocated detainees will be held or if some of them will be moved to other states. Castro said that families of detainees who have not yet been moved may seek temporary restraining orders to prevent transfers out of state.
Katie Blankenship, an immigration attorney at Sanctuary of the South, said all 50 of her clients have been moved to other facilities in South Florida, California, Arizona, Louisiana and Texas.
“They are all gone,” Blankenship said.
Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson, who plans to visit the Krome Detention Center in Miami on Thursday, told the Sun Sentinel in a statement that she hopes to see if detainees from Alligator Alcatraz are being moved to Krome.
“If individuals are being transferred from Alligator Alcatraz to Krome, the American people deserve to know who is being moved and how they are being treated,” she said. “I want to hear directly from those being detained and ensure that basic standards of care are being met. Every person, regardless of where they come from or their immigration status, deserves to be treated with dignity and decency. I intend to make sure that is happening.”
Information from the New York Times and the Associated Press was used in this report.
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