Florida Gov. DeSantis announces closure of 'Alligator Alcatraz'
by Darryl Coote · UPIJune 26 (UPI) -- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced the closure of the embattled immigration detention center colloquially known as "Alligator Alcatraz," less than a year after it opened.
"Florida led the way in increasing much-needed detention capacity and working with our federal partners to streamline deportations, removing thousands of the most dangerous criminal aliens from our country," DeSantis said in a statement.
"Alligator Alcatraz has fulfilled this mission. Detainees who are still awaiting deportation have been transferred to other federal facilities, and demobilization efforts are underway."
During a press conference Thursday, DeSantis, a Republican and Trump ally, celebrated the facility as being integral to facilitating Trump's immigration policy, stating it supported nearly 21,000 deportations.
"Those would be people, by and large, who would have been released back into society in Florida had this space not been here," he said.
"So, I have no doubt that when you start talking about 21,000 folks, that is without question, has made our state safer and it's made the country safer as well."
The temporary facility, built at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport compound, began accepting detainees last July as Florida sought to expand capacity for Trump's nationwide immigration enforcement surge.
DeSantis was among the most vocal supporters of Trump's aggressive immigration policy, which aimed to increase arrests, detention and deportations of immigrants facing removal.
In its short time, the Florida Everglades facility drew protests, a slew of lawsuits and allegations of inhumane conditions, detainee abuse and human rights violations, as well as accusations of harming the local environment.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Thursday that the facility's closure was long overdue.
"This facility should never have been built," she said in a statement.
"For nearly a year, people, including some of our own residents, have been held there without meaningful due process on county-owned land within the Everglades ecosystem."
Coinciding with its closure, Levine Cava announced her administration's intent to try to purchase the land the facility was on and transfer it to the National Park Service and other Everglades restoration authorities.
"These lands should never again be used for detention or other intensive development," she said.
"They should be permanently preserved as part of one of the nation's most important environmental restoration efforts."
Among those to file lawsuits against the state and federal governments in connection with the operation of the Everglades detention facility was the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which alleged that detainees were not offered meaningful access to legal representation and challenged Florida's authority to run an immigration detention facility.
While celebrating its closure, the ACLU of Florida warned that it was a product of systemic failures to uphold the constitutional rights of immigrants.
"As people are transferred to other facilities, the abuses do not disappear -- they relocate," Keisha Mulfort, deputy executive director and strategy officer of the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement.
"We will not allow this administration, or any administration, to simply shuffle the harm out of sight and call it progress. Our vigilance does not end with a closure. It deepens."