(Tallahassee) A senior Florida official says that “Alcatraz des Alligators”, a controversial detention center for migrants managed by the State, will probably be empty within a few days, according to an exchange of emails shared with the Associated Press.
This news comes as the administration of the Republican governor Ron Desantis and the federal government dispute the order of a judge asking for the closure of this center by the end of October.
In a message sent on August 22 to the Rabbi Mario Rojzman concerning the provision of chaplaincy services to the center, the executive director of the Florida emergency management division Kevin Guthrie, said that “we are likely to be reduced to zero in a few days. »»
Mr. Rojzman and the executive assistant who sent the initial email to Mr. Guthrie both confirmed to AP the veracity of messages on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Mr. Guthrie did not immediately respond to a comment request.
The center has been built hastily two months ago with the aim of welcoming up to 3000 prisoners, as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to expel people illegally in the United States.
He has already welcomed nearly 1,000 detainees, but the Democrat representative Maxwell Frost said he was informed during a visit last week that only 300 to 350.
Three complaints were filed to challenge the practices of the detention center, including one estimating that at least 100 prisoners who stayed there were deported. Others have been transferred to other detention centers for migrants.
The news of a possible departure of detainees occurred less than a week after a federal judge of Miami ordered the closure of the detention center, requesting that the last detainee be released within 60 days.
The state of Florida appealed the decision, and the federal government asked the district judge Kathleen Williams to suspend her order pending the appeal, saying that the thousands of beds in the Everglades center were essential since the other detention centers in Florida are overcrowded.
Environmental groups and the Miccosukee tribe, whose trial led to the judge’s decision, opposed the request. They challenged the argument that the Everglades center was necessary, especially since Florida plans to open a second detention center for migrants in the north of the state.
Elise Pautler Bennett, main lawyer of the center for biological diversity, one of the groups behind the trial, said that apparent efforts to quickly close the center discredit the arguments put forward by the government before the courts. The latter claimed that closure would be a difficulty that “compromised his ability to enforce immigration laws”.
“If it was so difficult, they wouldn’t have already done it, largely,” said the lawyer.
Judge Williams had not yet ruled on Wednesday at the request of suspension of her order.
The latter indicated that it provided for a decrease in the population of the center within 60 days thanks to the transfer of prisoners to other establishments. Once this decrease has been made, fences, lighting and generators should be removed.
The complaint stipulated that construction and exploitation work should be interrupted until the federal and state authorities comply with federal environmental laws; The supposedly threatening center of ecologically sensitive wetlands, which house protected plants and animals, which would compromise billions of dollars invested for decades in environmental catering.
At the end of July, state authorities had already signed contracts of more than 245 million US for the construction and operation of the center. The center officially opened its doors on 1er July.
In their legal actions, civil rights lawyers have described “serious problems” within the center; “Unheard of in the immigration system”. The detainees were kept for weeks without any accusation, had disappeared from the online location system of the ICE and no one within the establishment made an initial decision concerning possible liberations under deposit, they said.
The detainees also described the presence of worms in food, toilets that did not work and flooded soils of faeces.
