By the several hundreds on Sunday, people gathered outside the gates of an abandoned airport tarmac in a remote area off U.S. 41 protesting that Florida is proposing to be the next site of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. The state is calling it the Alligator Alcatraz.
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George Garcia, from Miami and an alligator wrestler, came out to help defend the Everglade. Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
George Garcia, from Miami and an alligator wrestler, came out to help defend the Everglade. Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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Elaine Camarda and husband, Robert Ubaldo, of Bonita Springs protests across from the entrance to the proposed site. Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
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— AlligatorAlcatraz062225AM
Sunday, June 22, Betty Osceola called on Love The Everglades Movement, and Friends of the Everglades along with other locals to protest a proposed immigrant detention center inside Big Cypress National Preserve. Protesters lined the road to try and stop "Alligator Alcatraz"..
Andrea Melendez/WGCU /
A tribal song could be heard in the distance as a line of demonstrators grew on both sides of U.S. 41 in the heart of the Big Cypress National Preserve in Collier County.
Florida is a key state for Donald Trump's immigration enforcement actions. It leads the country with some 290 different law enforcement agencies partnering with federal ICE officers to carry out immigration duties.
And still, Florida is proposing to do more on this swath of land that is both historically and biologically significant.
Decades ago, environmentalists, sport fishermen, and political people on both sides of the aisle banded together to stop a plan for the world's largest jetport on this same site.
That was until President Nixon designated the area the county's first national preserve.
Now this land is under threat again.
Garrett Stuart, a biologist and environmental activist and singer of that aforementioned tribal song, is determined to not go down without a fight.
"Failure isn't in my DNA. You know," Stuart said. "So I'm 100% confident, you know, it may not be as easy as a peaceful protest, you know, but that's a conversation for another day, if they take it there."
Nearby was Peter Graves of Chokoloskee Island. He too is passionate about saving the Everglades.
"All this came about that, you know, all, all of his ancestors, all, all of her ancestors, you know, they rose up, and it's like, no you cannot do this to this land. This is sacred land to them. This is the Everglades," he said. "You know, this is, this is not some place where you come in, you know, they white people have been trying to destroy the Everglades since we came to Florida."
The proposal, made recently by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and dubbed by him as the Alligator Alcatraz, would convert the abandoned jetport into a detention center for immigrants with criminal records. The site is currently called the Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport.
That proposed jetport's initial runway at the site was planned as a replacement runway for Miami International Airport to serve South Florida. In the 1970s, a coalition of conservationists, Indigenous leaders, and concerned citizens stopped the project.
The isolated location was chosen for the camp because it was considered ideal for preventing escapes. "Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide," Uthmeier said about the remote placement of the proposed camp in a promotional video posted to X. "We're ready to go."
Uthmeier said in the video that within just 30 to 60 days after beginning construction, the camp could be up and running and could house as many as 1,000 immigrants with criminal records.
"This presents a great opportunity for the state of Florida to work with Miami-Dade and Collier counties," he said. "The governor tasked state leaders to identify places for new temporary detention facilities. I think this is the best one."
In his tweet on X, Uthmeier said: "Alligator Alcatraz: the one-stop shop to carry out President Trump's mass deportation agenda."
"If somebody were to get out, there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide — only the alligators and pythons are waiting. That's why I like to call it 'Alligator Alcatraz,'" Uthmeier told Fox Business, announcing that the project is in the early stages.
Many at the protest said that was a shameful thing for the attorney general to say.
"Shame? Shame," Stuart said. "That we live in a time that's so disrespectful that you could propose something at the very site that literally started the EPA in America, literally started the first national preserve in America."
WGCU managing editor Mike Braun contributed to this report.
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