JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The immigration detention center called Alligator Alcatraz by state officials may be closing soon because it is too expensive to run. The Everglades facility began receiving detainees last July. State Democratic lawmakers sued Governor Ron DeSantis after they were denied access during a surprise visit. Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida got a look inside last month. She welcomed the news of a potential closure on her congressional YouTube channel.
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DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: The Everglades internment camps closure is long overdue. This monument to cruelty, waste and environmental and tribal lands abuse should never have been built.
SUMMERS: From member station WUSF, Meghan Bowman takes us through the rise and fall of the controversial facility.
MEGHAN BOWMAN, BYLINE: Since this immigration detention center opened in the Everglades last summer, hundreds of people, including Reverend Arthur Jones, have come to protest and pray about what's happening beyond the facility's front entrance...
ARTHUR JONES: So we are here today, as we were last Sunday, as we will be next Sunday.
BOWMAN: ...Including during a vigil earlier this month, just days after reports the pop-up detention center would soon close.
JONES: We love them, to let them know that we...
BOWMAN: It's off a remote, two-lane road in the middle of the Big Cypress National Preserve of the Everglades. The area's lack of infrastructure means everything is trucked in and out - tents, generators, toilets and even water and sewage.
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BOWMAN: Last year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis used emergency powers to turn a small training airport into a detention center in just eight days. At the opening, he praised the speed.
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RON DESANTIS: The site here was a unique opportunity. We were able to, within record time, create a facility that could support intaking, processing and eventually deporting these illegal aliens.
BOWMAN: But building it so quickly came with a high price tag, an estimated $1.4 billion for the state of Florida to run it for one year. State officials applied for reimbursement from FEMA for less than half of that. Emails show that FEMA has approved the first installment of more than $58 million. The rest will likely fall to Florida taxpayers.
Both the governor's office and the Florida Department of Emergency Management declined to be interviewed and did not confirm the amount spent on the center. Purchase orders from the state show vendors charged at least $290 million for work in building it. None of those vendors would say whether they'd been paid yet. But DeSantis said earlier this month that the cost to Floridians is justified, and the facility has served its purpose.
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DESANTIS: We were only doing it because the federal government didn't have the resources to hold these people themselves.
BOWMAN: He says at least 22,000 people have been detained and released. But ICE data shows from October to April, fewer than 1,400 men were detained there. More than 800 of them had no criminal record, but nobody should have been housed there, says Dan Summers.
DAN SUMMERS: I don't think that's a good location, just because of environmental concerns. What happens if you have to do a rapid evacuation, et cetera?
BOWMAN: He's the former head of emergency management in Collier County, which includes parts of the facility. He was involved in the early planning and worried about hurricanes. Now the DeSantis administration is in talks with the Department of Homeland Security to close the facility. For now, it remains operational. Cost is an issue, and DeSantis says it has served its purpose and was always meant to be temporary. A date for the closure has not been announced. Meanwhile, lawsuits over how the center is damaging the everglades are still ongoing. For NPR News, I'm Meghan Bowman.
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