Desantis used his emergency powers to have “Alligator Alcatraz” built

Tallahassee – Almost three years ago, when Hurricane Ian destroyed a bridge In southwest Florida and left residents on a barrier island with a little access to drinking water and food, Gov. Ron Desantis has taken advantage of his emergency authority to pass the entrepreneurs to reconstruct the bridge. It took less than three days.

Now, the Republican governor exercises these same powers for something different: building an immigration detention center deeply in the Everglades in a week.

Relying on a emergency Published in January 2023 in response to a flood of Cuban and Haitian migrants arriving by boat in the Florida Keys, Desantis seized the County land, mobilizing a team of private companies in set up an installation Large enough to have 3,000 immigrants detained and deployed troops from the Florida National Guard to secure the site. The migrant arrival rush ended a long time ago, but the order, which quotes the “inadequate” response of the president of the time, Joe Biden, was extended several times.

“This is not our first rodeo”, Desantis told Fox News Friday, during a tour, an aerodrome belonging to the county of Miami-Dade which was quickly transformed into a small grid of tents and heavy trailers.

“The detention of illegal foreigners is a little different,” said the governor. “But logistics, we know how to do this.”

The speed by which the State builds the detention camp – nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz in the blink of an eye to the wetlands filled with Gator surrounding the site – A Environmental environmentalists as well as local And elected officials of the state, some of whom wonder if the governor exceeds his authority.

“What is the urgency in the state of Florida we need to build this installation within this period?” Senator Lori Berman, a Boca Raton democrat, said on Friday. “We really can’t understand.”

The governor follows the letter of the law when it comes to exercising his emergency powers, she said, but the question is whether there is a real urgency.

“Florida builds a prison camp in the Everglades under the false coverage of an emergency,” said Senator Shevrin Jones, a Democrat from West Park.

‘Turbo-speed’

The idea of ​​the Alligator Alcatraz became known for the first time of the public on June 18 – less than two weeks before the scheduled opening date of the detention center. That day, the Florida Prosecutor General James UthmeierA named de Desantis, appeared on Fox News to talk about the plans of the new installation – with a helicopter visit on the site.

The news segment has bitten the interest of Ra Schooley, a former flight instructor and familiar pilot with the landing track. Schooley, a Miami resident, rushed to a quick email to environmental chiefs – including samples of Eve from Everglades.

“Another thing to keep an eye on …” he noted, sharing a link to the clip.

Two days later, Scholey saw an unusual notice of the Federal Aviation Administration to the airmen: the tiny airport was to close three days, from that evening. In almost three decades, Scholey had never seen the band close, so he sounded the alarm for other environmentalists.

“No one knew it,” he said. “I thought they should go through the community council or something.”

But unlike a typical state construction project, which can be held in long supply fights, the State was able to move at the speed of deformation due to the emergency authorization from Desantis.

On the morning of June 21, Scholey flew over the region for the last time. The FAA that day sent an opinion: no landing for the next 99 days. The same day, Uthmeier was in Washington, DC, meeting officials of the Ministry of Internal Security, starting a massive business to build the installation.

At the time, activists organized a demonstration on the property for Sunday, the same day as a central group of private entrepreneurs planned to hold a meeting on site. The federal government had approved The plans to build the project and shortly later, the trucks brought portable toilets, tents and industrial generators in the region – laying the basics for 2 -hour construction days.

The same day the construction began, the County County officials learned the plan for the first time, according to the emails obtained by the Miami Herald. The files show that collar managers were not clear on key details, especially if they were supposed to continue to answer emergency calls to the address.

“We have our own ambulance transport on site, and we comply with Florida and the standards of the national model,” wrote Kevin Guthrie, head of the emergency management department of Florida, the agency leading the operation. “He will undergo a federal inspection before opening.”

The mayor of the county of Miami-Dade, Daniella Levine Cava, also received a notice from Guthrie that day. He told him that the property, which belongs to the county, was now under the control of the State and that it would remain so until “the duration of the state of emergency”, according to the files obtained by the Herald.

Guthrie, who is also empowered to handle the emergency powers of the State, said that the State had started to build on the site, “as I now consider it necessary to respond to the current operational requests of the division to deal with the emergency.”

“Time is essence,” he told Levine Cava. “We must act quickly to ensure the preparation and continuity of our operations across the state to help the federal government to apply immigration.”

Tuesday, collar officials, who, with Miami-Dade, have earth surveillance, were still unanswered questions: “What are the expectations of transport resources in air medical trauma?” Hurricane, Grave time – Evacuation planning. Please transmit your refuge plan for severe officials, “Dan Summers, director of emergency services for collier, wrote by e-mail to state officials.

In the event of a hurricane, officials of the Division of the Emergency Division told Herald that prisoners and staff would be evacuated from the site. The agency added that it develops a disaster plan.

Definition of the previous one in Texas

Desantis’ actions are not unprecedented.

At the beginning of last year, the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott Texas Tribune.

The park is Rio Grande, which divides Mexico and the United States. According to the mayor of the city, Abbott has published an emergency declaration to take control of the park for use as a staging area. The city wanted to fight the takeover, but estimated that it was not in its Better interest financially.

Once seized by the State, soldiers from Texas and Florida have patrolled in the premises and left no one without authorization, including American agents of the border patrol, according to the Biden administration.

The acquisition of the Texas Park has come for years in a proclamation during the disaster above the border which Abbott was published for the first time in 2021. He again renewed the prescription this year – but has since returned the park to the public, saying that the Trump administration has helped reduce borders and that it was no longer necessary.

In the emergency order of Florida, the State affirms that the Biden administration is the reason for the immigration crisis. Even now, with the Trump administration in place, the continuous order notes that it is necessary because “the great influx and the number of illegal foreigners of the state remains”.

Since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump has canceled numerous immigration policies in the Biden era. On June 17, the White House said Us Border Patrol “did not release a single illegal in the United States” in May.

Uthmeier, during an interview with Fox News last week about the detention center, cited a Pew research study This noted that the undocumented population of Florida had increased from 400,000 from 2019 to 2022, reaching 1.2 million people. The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request asking for comments on the reasons why he thinks that the state is still in an emergency focused on immigration.

In Florida, emergency orders expire every 60 days unless the governor chooses to renew them, which he can do an unlimited number of times. An emergency order from Desantis issued in September 2022 Before Hurricane Ian is still active today, and an emergency order Desantis emitted when the Surfside condo tower collapsed almost two years.

Florida’s legislature has the capacity to stop the emergency order of Desantis or limit its scope by adopting a resolution, but it is not clear if it has ever happened.

The wider use of emergency power intervenes when the American presidents also relied on their emergency authority. Elena Chachko, professor of law at the Berkeley Law School, said that Trump and Biden employed emergency power in a broad and ambitious way.

Regarding the power of the president, Chachko said that the court was generally a check on the executive power.

In Florida, battles on decrees have also played in the courts. In 2021, a group of parents challenged a decree of Desantis which stopped the mandates of school mask. Friday, environmental advocacy groups filed a complaint contesting the new detention center for not having undergone a procedural review.

Chris Reynolds, emergency management expert and dean of academic awareness and the development of programs at the American Public University, called the extended state of emergency from Desantis to “unusual” immigration.

“Two years seem to be a horrible section,” he said.

Reynolds, from Tampa, said that emergency interventions are large to give leaders the flexibility to make rapid decisions and protect people. But in this case, he said that some could see the movements of Desantis as an excess.

“In my opinion as emergency manager, yes, this extends the doctrine of emergency management in terms of strict emergency management response,” he said. “Is it against the law? No.”

Without an explicitly declared disaster to prepare, mitigate, respond and recover, there is no strict and rapid rule when a “state of emergency” on immigration should expire.

However, Reynolds said that he did not see the immigrant detention camp diverting resources from the Floridians when the next hurricane arrives.

If anything, he said, it is a “superb” example of the type of logistics and prowess planning in Florida.