Feeling whipsawed about Alligator Alcatraz? Well, you're not alone. Bring in the Red Cross?
News and commentary from a Florida perspective
By J.C. Bruce
Do we need to bring in the International Red Cross to inspect Alligator Alcatraz?
One Democratic legislative candidate — who has made shutting down the Everglades gulag a pillar of his campaign — thinks that could be an option.
David Silverberg, running for the State Senate in District 28, which includes Collier County where the detention site was erected, wants proof that all the inmates have been removed as the state and federal government claim.
“Only when this concentration camp has been publicly and officially closed in the same way it was publicly and officially opened will the world have the assurance that this blot on Florida is no longer threatening the citizens of the state and the rest of the United States,” he said. “We will know it when the sign comes down—and in daylight, not in the middle of the night or hidden under tarps.”
What? He doesn’t trust the explanation given by ICE that inmates have been relocated for their safety during hurricane season? Even though they were there all last year and nobody was worried about hurricanes then?
“As President Ronald Reagan so famously said, ‘trust but verify.’ Well, I’m mistrustful of the reports I’ve seen to date,” Silverberg said. “I want verification through a public inspection. This inspection needs to be done either by impartial authorities, by lawmakers, and/or the media. It could even be done by the International Red Cross.
“Until then, it’s too soon to celebrate—and even if it has been emptied of detainees, that’s not the same thing as closing it. It could be reopened after hurricane season.
“We also don’t know how much it continues to cost Florida taxpayers at a time when they’re having difficulty buying groceries and filling their gas tanks.”
If you are feeling whipsawed by the news, you’re not alone.
The feds, out of the blue last week, announced inmates were being relocated. But when the Miami Herald pinned down the Florida official in charge of the detention center the next day, he seemed clueless:
Kevin Guthrie, the executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which oversees operations at Alligator Alcatraz, said he did not see the statement issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement before its release. He said he learned about it only through the media and has not been instructed by the federal government to pause operations at the Everglades detention center.
Now comes James Uthmeier, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ former chief of staff, whom he appointed attorney general and who gleefully conjured the name Alligator Alcatraz in the first place.
“The plan has always been to protect the Everglades,” he says.
Right.
When people who actually wanted to protect the Everglades, who sued because environmental impact assessments weren’t done before the prison compound was hastily erected, Uthmeier fought them like a rabid Skunk Ape.
After U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of Miami ordered the state to halt operations, Uthmeier appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block her order and called her a “leftist activist judge.”
(She’s the same “activist judge” who has raised questions about President Donald Trump’s sweetheart settlement with the Department of Justice that would give him a $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund and immunity from prosecution on his taxes.)
Much of the legal wrangling centered on who actually owned Alligator Alcatraz. Was it Florida? Or was it the U.S. government?
Williams said the feds owned it: “The project was requested by the federal government; built with a promise of full federal funding … staffed by deputized ICE Task Force Officers … If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it's a duck.”
The feds quickly figured out how to get out from under that fowl assessment. They cut off the money they’d promised to pay Florida.
But that was then, this is now.
Today, if you believe Uthmeier, it was always the plan that Alligator Alcatraz was only temporary—even though he and DeSantis were a few months earlier crowing that it was just the first of many Florida concentration camps—next up, Deportation Depot, then the Panhandle Pokey.
And if you check, as I did today, his campaign site is still selling Alligator Alcatraz bumperstickers, hats and tee shirts.
“Now that the federal government is resourced and standing up its own mission using its own authorities, [the site] is no longer necessary,” Uthmeier is now saying. “The plan has always been to protect the Everglades and take it back to a protected area where it’s not a commercial business, an airport.”
Oddly, not everyone trusts him.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Tania Galloni, managing attorney in the Earthjustice Florida regional office, told the Florida Phoenix. “The site absolutely should return to the Everglades, but under leadership that can be trusted to protect the environment.”
“This entire fiasco has shown that AG Uthmeier’s words mean very little — if anything at all — when it comes to Everglades protection,” said Elise Bennett, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’ll be watching closely, and we’re going to continue using every tool at our disposal to defend and restore Big Cypress and the Everglades until the job’s actually done.”
As for the continuing financial drain on the state that Silverberg alluded to, here’s an update on the numbers, courtesy of the Florida Phoenix:
The Florida Department of Emergency Management signed off on $1.01 billion in contracts while spending at least $20 million more on supplies, travel, and food — through February alone. The state still owes vendors at least $600 million for their work on “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot,” a second detention lockup in Baker County.
These dollars have all come out of Florida’s emergency response fund, initially designed to rapidly pay for natural disasters like hurricanes but later molded to include an illegal immigration crackdown. As of Monday, the trust had $25.6 million available — down from $47 million on Thursday.
The federal government has agreed to a $608.4 million reimbursement grant for Florida’s immigration activities on the centers. So far, the administration has received around $58 million.
So, we have a financial boondoggle, an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe, but, according to Uthmeier, it was all part of a master plan.
That and selling tee shirts, of course.
Related:
Alligator Alcatraz remains open, Florida’s emergency director says
What comes after ‘Alligator Alcatraz’? Uthmeier hopes for a protected environmental area
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J.C. Bruce
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Can't wait until the despicable Desantis regime is gone. David Jolly for governor.
On our flight over the area yesterday, there was no visible evidence that anything had been removed. The employee parking lot had about 20 more cars than it did two weeks ago