Florida evacuated its “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility in the Everglades over fears of hurricanes.
The facility, set up in one of the most inhospitable areas in the country last year and serving as a flagship for state efforts to support President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, mainly consists of enforced tents ill-suited for hurricanes.
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The agency said the facility’s “soft structure” could put immigrant detainees at risk and transferred them all to other facilities.
“As we enter into hurricane season, ICE and the state of Florida have moved illegal aliens from the soft sided facility,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement told NBC News Miami in a statement. “For the safety of the illegal alien detainees, we transferred them to other facilities.”
It remains an open question whether detainees will ever return to the facility, or if the evacuation will be an excuse to shut it down altogether. The center has struggled to defend itself against lawsuits as much as the elements, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) indicated on Tuesday that it was winding down operations.
“The state doesn’t direct people there, it’s DHS that directs them there,” he said at a news conference. “And so if DHS stops directing them there, then we obviously are not just going to, it was never meant to be permanent. I don’t think that it’s empty now, at least as of yesterday when I got briefed on it, but they’ve had tens, hundreds of billions of dollars plowed into that agency.”
HIGH COSTS AND HURRICANES BEHIND SHUTTERING OF ‘ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ’ DETENTION CENTER
DeSantis claimed the facility was only ever meant to be temporary.
“I think when we did it we thought that it would be six months to a year in terms of the necessity of it,” he said.
