Feds tell court they’re not in charge of Everglades detention center after migrants arrive

The federal government is disavowing responsibility for Florida’s Everglades immigration center the morning after people awaiting deportation arrived.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security neither funded nor authorized the 3,000-capacity tent and trailer detention center, counsel for the department wrote in a filing opposing environmental groups’ request that a federal court halt the site.

DHS also denied any authority over the immigrants, stating that Florida had decided to hold people at the detention center, rushed to completion in eight days.

Before Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that hundreds of immigrants would arrive Wednesday night, DeSantis’ communications director, Bryan Griffin, told reporters the timing of the arrival of detainees was up to DHS. Griffin also said the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) was in charge of the detention center with oversight from the federal government.

DHS’ Thursday filings contrast what Kristi Noem, the department’s head, and the president have said about FEMA’s funding of the detention center, which is projected to cost the state $450 million to run annually.

“We took the FEMA money that Joe Biden allocated to pay for the free luxury hotel rooms where he’s paying hundreds of millions of dollars in New York City, and we used it to build this project,” President Donald Trump said Tuesday during his tour of the detention center at the Miami-Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport.

While in public, the Trump administration has touted the use of FEMA funds to reimburse Florida, its attempt to stave off the legal challenge to the Everglades site includes arguing that federal funding hasn’t and may never come. Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against DHS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), FDEM, and Miami-Dade County.

The environmental groups are challenging the legality of the detention center because it has not gone through any environmental review as required under federal law, and the public did not get an opportunity to comment.

“Florida has received no federal funds, nor has it applied for federal funds related to the temporary detention center,” counsel for DHS and ICE wrote. “Courts cannot adjudicate hypothetical future funding decisions or render advisory opinions on contingent scenarios that may never materialize.”

Elise Bennett, an attorney representing the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a phone interview with Florida Phoenix that she found the feds’ response bemusing given the public portrayal of the partnership between the Trump and DeSantis administrations.

“From everything that we are seeing in the news, statements we’re hearing from federal officials: The feds have their fingerprints all over this project, and that’s because they appear to be working hand in glove with the state.”

Another top ICE official described in a declaration to the court the agency’s role in the development of the detention center as limited to an inspection to ensure compliance and meeting with state officials to discuss operational matters.

The DeSantis administration relied on a January 2023 emergency declaration against illegal immigration to commandeer the land owned by Miami-Dade County. The governor and Uthmeier have described the detention center as “Alligator Alcatraz,” a “one-stop shop” for deportations, stating that the flights would be handled by the federal government.

Oversight visit from Dems

Democrats at the state and federal levels have called out the lack of transparency or answers about the operation of the detention center. State Democratic lawmakers (Sens. Shevrin Jones and Carlos Guillermo Smith and Reps. Anna Eskamani, Angie Nixon, and Michele Rayner) planned to visit the center on Thursday afternoon.

“As lawmakers, we have both the legal right and moral responsibility to inspect this site, demand answers, and expose this abuse before it becomes the national blueprint,” they wrote in a press release. “So much of this is also a distraction from the everyday issues all Floridians are facing, like housing affordability and the property insurance crisis. DeSantis should be focused on solving those issues, not creating even more chaos.”

Earlier in the week, FDEM Director Kevin Guthrie argued in a filing to the court that the detention center is necessary to alleviate overcrowding in ICE detention centers. Five people have died in ICE custody in Florida this year, according to agency press releases. As of June 15, ICE held 56,397 people in detention, exceeding the 41,500 it has the funds to detain in the 2024 fiscal year.

Neither FDEM nor the governor’s office immediately responded to the Phoenix’s request for comment.

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