TALLAHASSEE — A top Florida official suggested last week that Alligator Alcatraz could be empty in a matter of days, even as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration and the federal government fight a judge’s order to shutter the controversial Everglades immigrant detention facility by late October.
That’s according to an email exchange shared with The Associated Press.
In a message sent to South Florida Rabbi Mario Rojzman on Aug. 22 related to providing chaplaincy services at the facility, Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie said “we are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days.”
Rojzman, and the executive assistant who sent the original email to Guthrie, both confirmed the authenticity of the messages to the AP on Wednesday.
It could not be determined whether Guthrie was referring to a temporary or permanent reduction in use of the facility. A spokesperson for Guthrie, whose agency has overseen the construction and operation of the site, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But Gov. Ron DeSantis, speaking at a press conference in Orlando, said Guthrie was not indicating the facility was being phased out. “He was just referring to they’re deporting them very quickly and that’s a good thing,” DeSantis said, insisting detainee numbers rise and fall as the facility is used.
Alligator Alcatraz was rapidly constructed two months ago with the goal of holding up to 3,000 detainees as part of President Donald Trump’s push to deport people who are in the U.S. illegally. At one point, it held almost 1,000 detainees, but U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., said that he was told during a tour last week that only 300 to 350 detainees were there at the time.
Three lawsuits challenging practices at the detention center have been filed, including one that estimated at least 100 detainees who had been at the facility have been deported. Others have been transferred to other immigration detention centers.
The news about detainee numbers at Alligator Alcatraz ccame less than a week after a federal judge in Miami ordered the detention center to wind down operations, with the last detainee needing to be out within 60 days. The state of Florida appealed the decision, and the federal government asked U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams to put her order on hold pending the appeal, saying that the Everglades facility’s thousands of beds were badly needed since other detention facilities in Florida were overcrowded.
The environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe, whose lawsuit led to the judge’s ruling, opposed the request. They disputed that the Everglades facility was needed, especially as Florida plans to open a second immigration detention facility in north Florida that DeSantis has dubbed “Deportation Depot.”
Williams had not ruled on the stay request as of Wednesday.
The judge said in her order that she expected the population of the facility to decline within 60 days by transferring detainees to other facilities, and once that happened, fencing, lighting and generators should be removed.
Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe had argued in their lawsuit that further construction and operations should be stopped until federal and state officials complied with federal environmental laws. Their lawsuit claimed the facility threatened environmentally sensitive wetlands that are home to protected plants and animals and would undermine billions of dollars spent over decades on environmental restoration.
By late July, state officials had already signed more than $245 million in contracts for building and operating the facility at a lightly used, single-runway training airport in the middle of the rugged and remote Everglades. The center officially opened July 1.
In their lawsuits, civil rights attorneys described “severe problems” at the facility which were “previously unheard-of in the immigration system.” Detainees were being held for weeks without any charges, they had disappeared from ICE’s online detainee locator and no one at the facility was making initial custody or bond determinations, they said.
Detainees also had described worms turning up in the food, toilets that didn’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects everywhere.
In his Wednesday press conference, DeSantis dodged direct questions about the status of Alligator Alcatraz, while insisting the federal Department of Homeland Security is in charge of its operations.
“The deportations are continuing,” DeSantis said. “DHS is taking people out of there and they’re moving them out.”
“Obviously there’s litigation that’s been going on that DHS is a party to and so that may be an influence about where they’re sending people to.”
DeSantis said Florida’s role is to provide space for processing detentions, a task that is increasingly necessary as large numbers of undocumented immigrants are arrested. He argued the state is in dire need for more space to process detainees, which is why another immigration detention facility is in the works in Northeast Florida dubbed ‘Deportation Depot.’
“Ultimately if DHS expands their own footprint capacity then maybe that need will go down,” DeSantis said. “But as of right now that need is very strong.”
Associated Press writer Mike Schneider in Orlando contributed to this report. Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Sentinel staff writer Natalia Jaramillo contributed to this article.
