OCHOPEE, Fla. (AP) — The primary group of immigrants had been scheduled to reach Wednesday evening at a new detention center deep within the Florida Everglades that officers have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” the state’s lawyer normal mentioned.
“Alligator Alcatraz will likely be checking in lots of of prison unlawful aliens tonight,” Florida Republican Legal professional Basic James Uthmeier mentioned on the X social media platform. “Subsequent cease: again to the place they got here from.”
It wasn’t instantly clear exactly when the detainees would arrive or the place they had been coming from. They had been being delivered to the power on buses, officers mentioned.
The facility, at an airport used for coaching, could have a capability of about 3,000 detainees when absolutely operational, in response to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis mentioned. The middle was in-built eight days over 10 miles (16 kilometers) of Everglades. It options greater than 200 safety cameras, 28,000-plus toes (8,500 meters) of barbed wire and 400 safety personnel.
Environmental teams and Native American tribes have protested against the center, contending it’s a menace to the delicate Everglades system, can be merciless to detainees due to warmth and mosquitoes, and is on land the tribes take into account sacred.
It is also positioned at a spot liable to frequent heavy rains, which triggered some flooding within the tents Tuesday throughout a go to by President Donald Trump to mark its opening. State officers say the complicated can face up to a Class 2 hurricane, which packs winds of between 96 and 110 mph (154-177 kph), and that contractors labored in a single day to shore up areas the place flooding occurred.
DeSantis and different state officers say finding the power within the rugged and distant Florida Everglades is supposed as a deterrent, and naming it after the notorious federal prison of Alcatraz, an island fortress identified for its brutal circumstances, is supposed to ship a message. It’s one other signal of how the Trump administration and its allies are counting on scare tactics to attempt to persuade individuals within the nation illegally to depart voluntarily.
State and federal officers have touted the plans on social media and conservative airwaves, sharing a meme of a compound ringed with barbed wire and “guarded” by alligators carrying hats labeled “ICE” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Republican Celebration of Florida has taken to fundraising off the detention heart, promoting branded T-shirts and beer koozies emblazoned with the power’s identify.
