> Alligator Alcatraz ... I voted for this!

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I just heard they have appointed 17 deportation judges so things are going to move very fast now 

I think they've found adminstrative law judges within the National Guard to provide 5 minutes of due process, if that.

wrote:

It sure is driving libs nuts for an empty processing center

https://x.com/JonCovering/status/1939727879752835215

Enemy propaganda sob stories

The calls from Alligator Alcatraz’s first detainees brought distressing news: Toilets that didn’t flush. Temperatures that went from freezing to sweltering. A hospital visit. Giant bugs. And little or no access to showers or toothbrushes, much less confidential calls with attorneys.

The stories, relayed to the Miami Herald by the wives of detainees housed in Florida’s makeshift detention center for migrants in the Everglades, offer the first snapshots of the conditions inside the newly opened facility, which began accepting detainees on July 2. They reveal detainees who are frightened not just about being deported, but also about how they are being treated by the government, which is saying little about what is taking place inside.

“Why would we treat a human like that?” a woman whose Venezuelan husband is housed in Alligator Alcatraz told the Miami Herald. “They come here for a better life. I don’t understand. We are supposed to be the greatest nation under God, but we forget that we’re under God.”

The men, whose identities the Herald is withholding due to their families’ fears that the government will punish them for speaking out, described harsh conditions at the detention center, pitched as a new model for holding migrants ensnared in President Donald Trump’s war on illegal immigration. The state, which intends to eventually house 3,000 or more people at the site, has said the detainees’ descriptions provided to the Herald are “untrue.”

“Bugs and environmental factors are minimized in the facility, restraints are only utilized during transport outside of the detention centers, and visitation arrangements can be made upon request,” said Stephanie Hartman, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Emergency Management, the state agency overseeing the facility’s operations. “All plumbing systems are working and operational.”

Detainees are telling their families a different story about what it’s like to live in cells inside heavy-duty tents erected on an airstrip in Big Cypress National Preserve.

On Monday afternoon, for instance, word spread quickly across the detention facility that a detainee had suffered a medical emergency. One by one, detainees started calling their family members, relaying different versions of what they believed had taken place.

Outside the detention center, Betty Osceola of the Miccosukee Tribe saw an ambulance leave the facility around 2 p.m. The ambulance headed east toward Miami with its lights on, and later returned to the site, Osceola told the Herald. HCA Florida confirmed that a detainee from Alligator Alcatraz arrived at its Kendall hospital for care on Monday.

“We can confirm,” said Jennifer Guerrieri, assistant vice president of strategic communications for HCA Healthcare’s East Florida Division.

State officials, however, denied there had been a medical emergency on site. A spokesman for Florida Attorney General James Uthemeier told the Herald it was “fake news.” After this article first published online, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged on the social media site X that the detainee had been sent to the hospital, but said he wasn’t admitted and was returned to the detention center in an hour and a half.

While the state says the stories detainees are sharing with the Herald are false, various scenarios described by three women in separate interviews are matching up.

The women told the Herald that their husbands were unable to shower for several days after arriving. On Sunday, two women said their husbands complained that initially there was no water to flush toilets. All three detainees told their wives that the bugs were getting inside, one of them saying that grasshoppers the size of his hand were springing into the tent and that the biggest mosquitoes he had ever seen were flying over them in their cells.

One detainee sent to Alligator Alcatraz from a Florida jail following a dispute with his ex was bitten on his face by mosquitoes a few times in his sleep, he told his wife on Monday morning. Another detainee, who was arrested for driving without a license three days before arriving at the facility, told his wife he “couldn’t take” the conditions anymore.

A fourth detainee, Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy Izquierdo told CBS News and other local media outlets that the lights are on inside the facility 24 hours a day, a detail that was corroborated by a Venezuelan detainee’s wife interviewed by the Herald. Izquierdo was transferred to the Everglades site after landing in Miami-Dade’s Turner Guilford Knight Correction Center on assault and battery charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

Inside the facility, detainees say there are no clocks and there is scant sunlight coming through the heavy-duty tents, making it difficult for them to know whether it is day or night.

The temperature is also a cause of concern for some family members.

A Guatemalan detainee told his wife that he was unable to sleep on Monday night due to how cold it was inside the tent. By Tuesday afternoon, the same man told his wife that it appeared the air-conditioner had stopped working and that it was really hot inside, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by the Herald. His wife told the Herald he was detained while he was a passenger during a traffic stop with Florida Highway Patrol.

The Venezuelan man’s wife heard the same thing on Tuesday afternoon. Her husband said the “air is hot” inside the tent. She said he sounded out of breath.

It was 96 degrees near Alligator Alcatraz Tuesday afternoon, according to National Weather Service data, with a “feels like” temperature of 105 degrees.

“This is not only a humanitarian crisis for detainees, but also for those tasked to staff this facility,” state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Olrando, told the Herald after hearing complaints about “horrifying conditions” at the facility related to water, temperatures and hygiene.

Since inviting some members of the press to tour the site prior to the arrival of the first detainees, the state has blocked Eskamani and other lawmakers from entering, ignored the Herald’s request to visit the site and left family members and at least one attorney guessing about how to get in touch with their loved ones and clients.

Katie Blankenship, an attorney and co-founder of Sanctuary of the South, a legal services network, said Tuesday she has been unable to get in touch with a new client whose wife called last week, saying her husband was being transferred to Alligator Alcatraz from the Krome immigration detention center in Miami-Dade County.

Blankenship doesn’t have a number to call him at the facility. His name isn’t showing up in an online website kept by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She has asked ICE officials to confirm his whereabouts, but she said her emails have gone unanswered and the wife hasn’t heard from her husband since he was transferred.

“I think it’s a gross, gross violation of due process to put people literally in this black hole where they cannot be found,” Blankenship said in an interview. “They cannot speak with counsel, they cannot contact immigration court. They are just for all intents and purposes, disappeared.”

When detainees call their loved ones, their conversations are recorded. The state has yet to provide them with a way to call their legal counsel through a secure line, said one of the women interviewed by the Herald.

According to a draft operational plan obtained by the Herald outlining the “minimum requirements” for the facility, immigrant detainees should have the ability to “confidentially contact several legal entities at no cost, or in the alternative, allow for these free calls through some other means.”

The draft proposal states that “the facility shall ensure the privacy to ICE detainees’ legal calls with attorneys, legal services providers, and consular officials.” Records also state that “the facility shall notify ICE detainees of the proper procedures to have unmonitored legal calls.”

Hartman did not respond when asked Tuesday morning if the state had provided a confidential line for detainees.

It’s unclear if detained migrants at Alligator Alcatraz are under the custody of ICE or the state, and how they will have access to a judge. According to a court filing on Tuesday in a lawsuit related to environmental concerns, legal counsel for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, said any decision to hold immigrant detainees at Alligator Alcatraz would be up to Florida, not DHS.

“We don’t know what entity to call. Who is in charge out there? I don’t think anybody actually knows who is in charge,” Blankenship said.

The Venezuelan man’s wife told the Herald she spent days desperately looking for the facility’s phone number in hopes of being able to connect her husband with his immigration attorney. She can’t find a website with any of the information online. When she calls the number he calls from, the line directs her to an automated message from a third-party company. On Tuesday she found an email.

Hartman, the state agency spokeswoman, did not immediately respond when asked how family members and attorneys could request visitations.

On Tuesday, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, whose government owns the site, wrote letters to the state and federal governments demanding more transparency.

Writing to Noem, Levine Cava said Alligator Alcatraz is located in an isolated area “with poor access to hospitals and legal counsel.” Levine Cava also requested in a letter to Uthmeier weekly reports on conditions at the site, remote video monitoring and the ability to send a team to conduct site visits.

“Families and advocates are being shut out, and the public is left in the dark,” the Democratic mayor wrote.

DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on Levine Cava’s letter.

The wife of the Guatemalan detainee said she was trying to get an immigration attorney to represent her husband, but that she was having trouble finding someone to take the case because of the lack of information regarding his whereabouts.

When a reporter asked her what she plans to do, she paused.

“Wait,” she said. “There is nothing else to do, not even the attorneys can do anything.”

This article has been updated to include new information from the Department of Homeland Security clarifying that a detainee at Alligator Alcatraz was transported to HCA Florida Kendall Hospital on Monday, but was not admitted and returned to the detention center that same day.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfdA9nIDUfk

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Freezing.   In the subtropical Florida Everglades.   In JULY.



Pull the other one, libs.

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IMAGINE, IF YOU WILL, A CHILD'S INNOCENT TONGUE STUCK PITEOUSLY TO THE RIM OF THE TOILET FROM WHICH HE WAS ATTEMPTING TO DRINK. WE DID AND IT WAS REALLY SAD.

wrote:

I think they've found adminstrative law judges within the National Guard to provide 5 minutes of due process, if that.

If they know they wont get free release they are less inclined to file endless appeals.

wrote:

The calls from Alligator Alcatraz’s first detainees brought distressing news: Toilets that didn’t flush. Temperatures that went from freezing to sweltering. A hospital visit. Giant bugs. And little or no access to showers or toothbrushes, much less confidential calls with attorneys.

Toilets?  Are you telling me ICE hasn't picked up one illegal plumber?

Giant bugs?  DeSantis should contact Disney's Pest Management for a quote.  (And yes, Disney's Pest Management is a real entity.)

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday that the federal government has begun sending flights in and out of the airstrip that is attached to the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, known as Alligator Alcatraz.

The governor said the federal government has deported about 100 people who were held at the detention camp and that “hundreds” of others have been transferred to deportation hubs in other parts of the country, such as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s staging facility in Louisiana.

“I think you’re going to see the cadence on these flights start to pick up, obviously,” DeSantis said at a news conference. “Honestly, to get to where we were at the beginning of the month, and now have flights leaving already with the facility that has been built — that’s incredible.”

Though the DeSantis administration has been saying for nearly two weeks that deportations of Alligator Alcatraz detainees were underway, the announcement that the Department of Homeland Security is now sending flights to transfer detainees to and from the facility reflects a significant milestone in the ascension of the detention center.

The state and federal governments have called the site a game-changer for Trump’s mass-deportation campaign, with the governor touting the runway at the seized Dade-Collier Training and Transition Center as a means to fast-track deportations.

“We’ve had two or three removal flights and will continue to have those removal flights. Up to 100 individuals who are illegally present in the state of Florida have already been removed from the United States,” Garret Ripa, the field office director for ICE Enforcement Removal Operations in Miami, said at Friday’s news conference.

But nearly a month into the detention camp’s operation, the governor said a key part of that plan — the use of National Guard judge advocate general corps attorneys to oversee immigration cases — has yet to launch. And he indicated that he wants the pace of flights to pick up.

“I just don’t want it to be something where people, illegals are just being stored there and they kind of sit,” DeSantis said. “I want it to be where illegals are here and there’s an aggressive processing and aggressive deportation schedule.”

Specific details about what is happening at Alligator Alcatraz remain fuzzy, even as the DeSantis administration releases new information.

At the news conference, DeSantis said there have been “100 full deportations” out of Alligator Alcatraz, but he did not say when those took place or whether people were sent directly to another country or to a staging facility for deportation. He also said that hundreds of other detainees were sent to other parts of the country to be staged for deportation — a move he said made sense given the varying nationalities of detainees at the site.

“It makes sense logistically because if we got a plane full of people with a variety of nationalities, if you go to a central hub, you pull the nationalities and send one flight to one place another flight to another place,” DeSantis told reporters on Friday. “So that is what we are doing.”

When President Donald Trump toured the detention camp in the Florida Everglades on July 1, state officials billed it as a “one-stop shop” for processing and deporting immigrants from the on-site 10,500-foot-long runway.

“One of the reasons why this was a sensible spot is because you have this runway that’s right here,” DeSantis said Friday, reiterating that goal. “You don’t have to drive them an hour to an airport. You go a couple thousand feet, and they can be on a plane and out of here.

State and federal officials did not respond to a request seeking clarification on whether any of the flights that have taken off from Alligator Alcatraz have been direct deportation flights to other countries. Officials also did not provide the names of the people who have been transferred out of the facility.

The state and federal governments have not released information about the people who have been in the deportation flights.

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DHS approves Florida’s $608 million request to pay for Alligator Alcatraz

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved the state of Florida’s application for a $608 million grant to cover expenses related to immigration detention and enforcement, including at Alligator Alcatraz.

Although the grant application was approved on Sept. 30, the state said it has yet to receive any of the money.

“To date, no funds have been awarded to the State of Florida,” said Stephanie Hartman, director of communications for the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

In an email to the Miami Herald on Friday, Hartman stated that for the state to receive the money it must still follow the federal agencies’ reimbursement guidelines, which review every expense before handing over payment.

“As with the existing FEMA reimbursement process, once expenses are incurred, reimbursements will be requested from and reviewed by FEMA.” Hartman said. “Following approval, the appropriate funds will then be released to the state.”

When the state begins receiving federal funds, it could put its operations at Alligator Alcatraz in a precarious position, potentially leading to another closure of the site.

Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe argued in a lawsuit filed in June that in their rush to build the facility, the state and federal governments failed to follow federal environmental regulations, which require an environmental impact assessment for such projects. They stated that continuous operation of the site caused irreparable damage to the surrounding wetland.

A federal judge agreed with the environmental groups and ordered the government to stop accepting new detainees at the site and to halt all construction, effectively shutting down the site within 60 days.

That decision, however, was short-lived, as a split decision of the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals paused the underlying case and stopped the order. The appeal judges sided with the government’s argument that the federal environmental law, known as the National Environmental Protection Act, does not apply to state agencies. They reiterated the argument from the state and federal governments that all operations and funding at Alligator Alcatraz were by the state. The Florida Division of Emergency Management oversees the site.

The appeal judges also noted that, at the time, the state had not received any federal funding for its expenses at the detention facility and therefore should not be subject to federal environmental laws. They said that could change if the state filed and received federal money.

“There may come a time when FDEP applies for FEMA funding. If the Federal Defendants ultimately decide to approve that request and reimburse Florida for its expenditures related to the Facility, they may need to first conduct” an environmental impact statement, the judges said.

In the lawsuit, the state stated in August that it had already spent about $250 million at Alligator Alcatraz. Most of the expenses are linked to contracts with private companies that were awarded under a 2023 emergency order declaring illegal immigration an emergency, which allowed the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis to bypass laws that would have required following specific vendor acquisition regulations.

When the facility, located on the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the middle of the Big Cypress National Preserve, opened, the Department of Homeland Security estimated that the site would cost Florida taxpayers $450 million annually.

During her visit to the site with President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem promised that FEMA would reimburse the state for those expenses through its $650 million shelter fund. The Biden administration created the program in 2023 to allow FEMA to award grants to state, local, or nonprofit organizations that provide support services to migrants released from ICE custody.

Upon the announcement of the grant approval, environmental groups immediately contended that, when the state receives federal funds, it is required to conduct an environmental review.

Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental groups involved in the case, called the award from FEMA a “smoking gun” that proves the group’s lawsuit is “entirely correct.” Except it is not.

“This is a federal project being built with federal funds that’s required by federal law to go through a complete environmental review. The Trump administration can’t keep lying through their teeth to the American public at the expense of Florida’s imperiled wildlife. We’ll do everything we can to stop this lawless, destructive, and wasteful debacle,” Bennett said.

Oral arguments regarding the merits of the state’s appeal of the lower court decision are scheduled for January. Of what year? Unknown. Because fuq you, libfilth.

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How about "The Deep Dish" Deportation Center:

https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1974256306828480633

 

A federal judge on Thursday denied a request by a detainee at Florida’s state-run immigration detention center in the Everglades to stop the DeSantis administration from holding immigrants at Alligator Alcatraz, dealing another blow to the civil rights groups that have been trying to shut down the facility.

In a six-page ruling, U.S. Middle District Judge Kyle C. Dudek said the plaintiff had not shown that he or other detainees faced “irreparable injury” while being held at Alligator Alcatraz.

“Plaintiff must show that his confinement at Alligator Alcatraz, and not the detention itself, constitutes irreparable injury,” Dudek wrote.

In the lawsuit filed in August, the plaintiff, M. A., represented by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, disputed the state’s legal authority to operate the immigrant detention center, arguing that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. The plaintiff also alleged that detainees at the site lacked adequate access to lawyers, could not be tracked on the ICE online locator, and were living in unsafe and unsanitary conditions.

The lawyers had requested a preliminary injunction to bar the state from holding detainees at the site.

The state argued that the Department of Homeland Security had authorized it to assist in the detention of immigrant detainees through its 287(g) agreements. These agreements allow state and local governments to carry out immigration enforcement, including housing detainees.

The DeSantis administration also argued that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had inspected the facility and found it to meet its standards.

“Alligator Alcatraz is a lawful effort by Florida to assist the federal government with immigration detentions,” the DeSantis administration wrote.

Dudek, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump, did not find the evidence provided was “sufficient to warrant a preliminary injunction.” He ruled that it was “many months old and largely stale.” He pointed to the petitions submitted by attorneys on behalf of clients as evidence of attorney access and noted that detainees at the facility now appear on ICE’s online locator.

“Plaintiff is essentially asking this Court to close a sizable and expensive detention facility, all before any decision on the merits of its legality,” he wrote. “While there may indeed be deficiencies at Alligator Alcatraz that ultimately justify its dissolution, Plaintiff has not made the extraordinary showing needed to justify immediate relief of such magnitude.”

When the facility initially opened, lawyers were unable to access their clients and were turned away at the gate. Since then, the facility has been setting up video conferences and, at times, in-person meetings. In October, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that detainees being held at the site were appearing on the ICE locator.

The lawsuit is one of several legal challenges that have targeted the site. In August, a federal judge in another case brought by environmental groups ordered the facility shut down, citing environmental harm, but an appeals court reversed the order and kept the site open. In December, the appeals court reopened the environmental case after a pause due to the federal government shutdown.

Lawyers in another lawsuit argue that the detainees’ First Amendment rights at the site are still being violated and that there is no confidential access to their attorneys.

Seer gut!
It ist going very well.
Very well indeed, ja!