Construction is moving rapidly on a controversial migrant detention center deep in the Florida Everglades nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz," despite growing concerns from Native American tribes who call the area home.
The facility is being built on an old airstrip at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, roughly an hour and 45 minutes west of Miami. The state is using emergency powers to take over the county-owned land and construct a center that can detain up to 5,000 migrants.
The site is surrounded by wildlife, swampland, and alligators, but it’s also adjacent to Native American land. Members of the Miccosukee Tribe say the project threatens their way of life and the fragile Everglades ecosystem they rely on for food, water, and traditional medicine.
“I started to get upset at the way he described the landscape as if it’s a wasteland,” said Betty Osceola, a Miccosukee tribal member, after comments made by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. "He talks about there’s only alligators and pythons out here. And I’m like, what about me? I’m out here. My family’s out here."
Osceola lives about three miles from the site and says the entrance to the new detention center is dangerously close to tribal ceremonial grounds.
"This is our homeland and it’s a fragile ecosystem that needs to be protected,” she said. "I have safety concerns — traffic, air quality, spills, and even access to our sacred sites."
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