Immigrants rounded up under Trump's massive deportation plan could start arriving at a swiftly constructed federal immigration detention camp in the heart of the Everglades' Big Cypress Preserve any day now.
The creation of what the state is calling Alligator Alcatraz has drawn scorn around the country after state officials just weeks ago floated the idea of a building a holding area surrounded by the wilds of Florida. Nature — alligators and pythons — the governor and president claim, will deter immigrants from trying to escape.
READ MORE: Women have long fought to protect the Florida Everglades, the site of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
Environmentalists, tribal leaders and everyday citizens maintain the facility will forever alter the footprint of one of world's most fragile and fascinating ecosystems.
Even without the facility being fully operational, Elise Bennett of the Center for Biological Diversity says the negative implications of a facility in Big Cypress are palpable.
Big Cypress, Bennett said, contains some of the darkest skies east of the Mississippi River. "And we already have reports of folks around the site who have seen massive light pollution. It almost looks like the light of day from miles away from the site."
That impacts the not only the enjoyment of tribal communities and those who visit there, but also impacts animals that hunt at night, she said.
"Big Cypress is one of the last places that we can count on to protect our Florida Panthers as private lands north of the Everglades and Big Cypress are slowly eaten away by development for commercial and residential uses," Bennett said. "So to put any kind of development in the middle of this safe haven is really a death knell for many endangered species, including the Florida panther."
Back-to-back weekend demonstrations drew hundreds outside the gates of the old jet port turned detention center recently.
Many were back Tuesday when Gov. Ron DeSantis gave Trump a tour of the facility. Trump hinted the detention center could become a permanent fixture in the Everglades.
Environmental groups like Bennett's Center for Biological Diversity tried in court to get a federal judge to halt the project before July 1. Regardless of the plaintiff's self-imposed deadline passing, Bennett and Eve Samples with the Friends of the Everglades, a co-plaintiff, say they are still very much in the fight.
The crux of the argument to halt the facility from going any further revolves around the decades-old National Environmental Policy Act.
Ironically, the 1970 act was created in part after a groundswell of opposition to build the world's largest jet port on this very site was halted by President Nixon.
The plaintiffs maintain the federal government is openly disregarding the requirements of NEPA.
"They say there will be no environmental impact. No analysis has been done, no assessment has been done, no public input has occurred, no effort to concur with other agencies, all of the things that the law requires," said attorney for the plaintiffs, Paul Schwiep.
The state maintains it is trying to help the president find necessary space to house immigrants caught up in the massive sweeps across the country.
DeSantis says a 2023 emergency declaration on immigration gives him the power to utilize the land for the 5,000-bed immigration detention facility.
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