TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration left many native officers at the hours of darkness in regards to the immigration detention heart that rose from an remoted airstrip within the Everglades, emails obtained by The Related Press present, whereas counting on an government order to grab the land, rent contractors and bypass legal guidelines and rules.
The emails present that native officers in southwest Florida have been nonetheless making an attempt to chase down a “rumor” in regards to the sprawling “Alligator Alcatraz” facility deliberate for his or her county whereas state officers have been already on the bottom and sending distributors via the gates to coordinate building of the detention heart, which was designed to accommodate hundreds of migrants and went up in a matter of days.
“Not cool!” one native official instructed the state company director spearheading the development.
The 100-plus emails dated June 21 to July 1, obtained via a public information request, underscore the breakneck pace at which the the governor’s crew constructed the ability and the extent to which native officers have been blindsided by the plans for the compound of makeshift tents and trailers in Collier County, a rich, majority-Republican nook of the state that’s house to white-sand seashores and the western stretch of the Everglades.
The manager order, initially signed by the Republican governor in 2023 and prolonged since then, accelerated the undertaking, permitting the state to grab county-owned land and evade guidelines in what critics have known as an abuse of energy. The order granted the state sweeping authority to droop “any statute, rule or order” seen as slowing the response to the immigration “emergency.”
A consultant for DeSantis didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Often called the Dade-Collier Coaching and Transition Airport, the airstrip is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of downtown Miami. It’s positioned inside Collier County however is owned and managed by neighboring Miami-Dade County. The AP requested for comparable information from Miami-Dade County, which continues to be processing the request.
To DeSantis and different state officers, constructing the ability within the distant Everglades and naming it after a infamous federal jail have been meant as deterrents. It’s one other signal of how President Donald Trump’s administration and his allies are counting on scare techniques to strain people who find themselves within the nation illegally to go away.
Detention heart within the Everglades? ‘Never heard of that’
Collier County Commissioner Rick LoCastro apparently first heard in regards to the proposal after a involved resident in one other county despatched him an e mail on June 21.
“A citizen is asking about a proposed ‘detention center’ in the Everglades?” LoCastro wrote to County Supervisor Amy Patterson and different workers. “Never heard of that … Am I missing something?”
“I am unaware of any land use petitions that are proposing a detention center in the Everglades. I’ll check with my intake team, but I don’t believe any such proposal has been received by Zoning,” replied the county’s planning and zoning director, Michael Bosi.
Environmental teams have since filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that the state illegally bypassed federal and state legal guidelines in constructing the ability.
In actual fact, LoCastro was included on a June 21 e mail from state officers asserting their intention to purchase the airfield. LoCastro sits on the county’s governing board however doesn’t lead it, and his district doesn’t embody the airstrip. He forwarded the message to the county lawyer, saying “Not sure why they would send this to me?”
Within the e mail, Kevin Guthrie, the pinnacle of the Florida Division of Emergency Administration, which constructed the detention heart, stated the state meant to “work collaboratively” with the counties. The message referenced the manager order on unlawful immigration, however it didn’t specify how the state wished to make use of the positioning, apart from for “future emergency response, aviation logistics, and staging operations.”
The subsequent day, Collier County’s emergency administration director, Dan Summers, wrote up a briefing for the county supervisor and different native officers, together with some notes in regards to the “rumor” he had heard about plans for an immigration detention facility on the airfield.
Summers knew the place properly, he stated, after doing an in depth web site survey a number of years in the past.
“The infrastructure is — well, nothing much but a few equipment barns and a mobile home office … (wet and mosquito-infested),” Summers wrote.
FDEM instructed Summers that whereas the company had surveyed the airstrip, “NO mobilization or action plans are being executed at this time” and all exercise was “investigatory,” Summers wrote.
Emergency director stated lack of awareness was ‘not cool’
Evan Vucci through Related Press
By June 23, Summers was racing to organize a presentation for a gathering of the board of county commissioners the subsequent day. He shot off an e mail to FDEM Director Kevin Guthrie searching for affirmation of fundamental info in regards to the airfield and the plans for the detention facility, which Summers understood to be “conceptual” and in “discussion or investigatory stages only.”
“Is it in the plans or is there an actual operation set to open?” Summers requested. “Rumor is operational today… ???”
In actual fact, the company was already “on site with our vendors,” coordinating building of the positioning, FDEM bureau chief Ian Guidicelli responded.
“Not cool! That’s not what was relayed to me last week or over the weekend,” Summers responded, including that he would have “egg on my face” with the Collier County Sheriff’s Workplace and Board of County Commissioners. “It’s a Collier County site. I am on your team, how about the courtesy of some coordination?”
On the night of June 23, FDEM formally notified Miami-Dade County it was seizing the county-owned land to construct the detention heart, underneath emergency powers granted by the manager order.
Plans for the ability sparked issues amongst first responders in Collier County, who questioned which company could be accountable if an emergency ought to strike the positioning.
Discussions on the problem grew tense at instances. Native Fireplace Chief Chris Wolfe wrote to the county’s chief of emergency medical providers and different officers on June 25: “I am not attempting to argue with you, more simply seeking how we are going to prepare for this that is clearly within the jurisdiction of Collier County.”
‘Not our circus, not our monkeys’
Alexandra Rodriguez through Related Press
Summers, the emergency administration director, repeatedly reached out to FDEM for steerage, making an attempt to “eliminate some of the confusion” across the web site.
As he and different county officers waited for particulars from Tallahassee, they turned to native information shops for data, sharing hyperlinks to tales amongst themselves.
“Keep them coming,” Summers wrote to county Communications Director John Mullins in response to at least one information article, “since its crickets from Tally at this point.”
Hoping to handle any blowback to the county’s tourism business, native officers saved shut tabs on media protection of the ability, watching because the information unfold quickly from native newspapers in southwest Florida to nationwide shops comparable to The Washington Submit and The New York Occasions and worldwide information websites as far-off as Nice Britain, Germany and Switzerland.
As questions from reporters and complaints from involved residents streamed in, native officers lined up authorized documentation to indicate the airfield was not their accountability.
In an e mail chain labeled, “Not our circus, not our monkeys…,” County Legal professional Jeffrey Klatzkow wrote to the county supervisor, “My view is we have no interest in this airport parcel, which was acquired by eminent domain by Dade County in 1968.”
In the meantime, building on the web site plowed forward, with vehicles arriving across the clock carrying moveable bathrooms, asphalt and building supplies. Among the many firms that snagged multimillion greenback contracts for the work have been these whose homeowners donated generously to DeSantis and different Republicans.
On July 1, simply 10 days after Collier County first received wind of the plans, the state formally opened the ability, welcoming DeSantis, Trump, Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem and different state and nationwide officers for a tour.
A county emergency administration staffer fired off an e mail to Summers, asking to be included on any web site go to to the ability.
“Absolutely,” Summers replied. “After the President’s visit and some of the chaos on-site settles-in, we will get you all down there…”
Kate Payne is a corps member for The Related Press/Report for America Statehouse Information Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit nationwide service program that locations journalists in native newsrooms to report on undercovered points.
