A seemingly nonstop stream of dump trucks and semi rigs entering the grounds of what's been dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" roared past hundreds of sign-waving and chanting protestors Saturday as they lined U.S. 41 east and west of the site in the Big Cypress National Preserve.
Cars passing by honked in support as protesters waved signs calling for the protection of the expansive preserve that is home to a few Native tribes and several endangered animal species.
The second significant protest in as many weeks was pulled together by people such as Betty Osceola, a Miccosukee leader and environmental educator who lives near the facility. There are 15 remaining traditional Miccosukee and Seminole tribal villages in Big Cypress, as well as ceremonial and burial grounds throughout the area.
Osceola voiced concern on how the camp was affecting the area and feared that letting the camp spring into life will help developers open the environmentally sensitive area to homes, stores and more.
"The earth must be crying. I feel the sadness. My shoes are off. I can feel what it's feeling. It's very upset," she said. "My ancestors are laid to rest out there, all around that place. The ancestors are there. The ancestors don't like all these vehicles and all that fuel that's going in, being dumped on them. They're upset. There's a lot going on. There's all these emotions in the air coming out of the environment about all of this, I feel it. I'm being bombarded by it. That's why we're praying and trying to reassure the earth and try to pray for humanity that to give us another chance."
Osceola said she and others were praying to stop the project.
"We want to let them know that we're praying, for when we talk about the environment, and trying to stop this insanity that's going on, because it's insane," she said. "(To) a person that comes from a place of healing, this doesn't make sense to me, but I'm trying to pray over it and heal these people so they would quit. Quit doing this, not just out here, but everywhere else."
Osceola said that the camp is only a beginning. She said previous development plans like the jetport in the 1970s was stopped. But her sense was that if the camp goes through, then further development was not far behind.
"This is just one of their reasons to get into the Everglades and somebody's going to have another brainchild of an idea," she said. "Oh, well, let's do this. Let's do that. But right now they're building a mini next thing you know, somebody's going to have an idea. Well, maybe we should build some permanent homes. Well, maybe we should have a CVS or a Walgreens or a grocery store."
Native Americans were not the sole make-up of the hundreds who came to decry the camp and what is considered a degradation of environmentally sensitive lands.
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Christopher McVoy, commissioner of District 2 for Lake Worth Beach, on the state's east coast by West Palm Beach, has a personal interest in the use of the site as a camp.
"There's nothing good about this. There's nothing that in any way, shape or form enhances Everglades restoration. And we've spent billions, literally billions," he said. "That's what I've worked most of my career on, is science support for Everglades restoration to make sure that, and there's been a very big commitment inside Everglades restoration to do things thoughtfully with as much science and information and data as possible, so that you make long term wise choices and wise investments of that public money. This flies in the face of that totally."
McVoy's bona fides are without question when it comes to environmental issues. He is an ecohydrologist, Everglades expert, and author trained in systems analysis and simulation modeling. McVoy, who has a PhD, is a noted educator and advocate for environmental science and is internationally experienced in environmental and agricultural research. His work has been published in Ecological Economics, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment and other peer-reviewed journals.
A principal author of "Landscapes and Hydrology of the Predrainage Everglades," McVoy currently serves as the lead environmental scientist for South Florida Engineering and Consulting, LLC.
McVoy's heart is also touched when he sees how the site is planned to be used as a detention camp for immigrants being deported.
"I'm a city commissioner in Lake Worth Beach, a city near West Palm of about 40,000 people, about a fourth of that is folks who left Guatemala, many of them leaving the genocide in Guatemala," he said. "I know people personally whose family members were hacked to death with machetes in Guatemala, that and other difficult conditions in Guatemala drove immigration to Lake Worth. Not all of those people have full documentation. Many of them are in process."
He said he knows that preschools and schools in his area are seeing kids not going to school because of fear of ICE raids.
"So ... this hits me personally as an Everglades scientist committed to the environment. It hits me personally as a commissioner," he said.
Florida officials have forged ahead over the past week in constructing the compound dubbed as "Alligator Alcatraz" within the Everglades' humid swamplands. The facility will have temporary structures like heavy-duty tents and trailers to house detained immigrants. The state estimates by early July, it will have 5,000 immigration detention beds in operation.
The compound's proponents have noted its location in the Florida wetlands — teeming with massive reptiles like alligators and invasive Burmese pythons — make it an ideal spot for immigration detention.
"Clearly, from a security perspective, if someone escapes, you know, there's a lot of alligators," Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday. "No one's going anywhere."
Under DeSantis, Florida has made an aggressive push for immigration enforcement and has been supportive of the federal government's broader crackdown on illegal immigration. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has backed "Alligator Alcatraz," which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said will be partially funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Friday to block the detention center.
Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity are the groups suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, and Miami-Dade County.
The lawsuit seeks to halt the project until it undergoes a stringent environmental review as required by federal law. There is also supposed to be a chance for public comment, according to the lawsuit filed in Miami federal court.
The center is set to begin processing people who entered the U.S. illegally as soon as next week, the governor said Friday on "Fox and Friends."
The state Republican Party has even begun selling T-shirts and other merchandise emblazoned with the "Alligator Alcatraz" slogan.
DeSantis's spokesman said they will oppose the lawsuit in court.
Until the site undergoes a comprehensive environmental review and public comment is sought, the environmental groups say construction should pause. The facility's speedy establishment is "damning evidence" that state and federal agencies hope it will be "too late" to reverse their actions if they are ordered by a court to do so, said Elise Bennett, a Center for Biological Diversity senior attorney working on the case.
The potential environmental hazards also bleed into other aspects of Everglades life, including a robust tourism industry where hikers walk trails and explore the marshes on airboats, said Floridians for Public Lands founder Jessica Namath, who attended the protest. To place an immigration detention center there makes the area unwelcoming to visitors and feeds into the misconception that the space is in "the middle of nowhere," she said.
"Everybody out here sees the exhaust fumes, sees the oil slicks on the road, you know, they hear the sound and the noise pollution. You can imagine what it looks like at nighttime, and we're in an international dark sky area," Namath said. "It's very frustrating because, again, there's such disconnect for politicians."
Another lawsuit was filed on Friday, relating to the camp, in U.S. District Court Northern District by a Homestead man, Joshua-Michael Van Schaick, and names DeSantis, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, Florida Department of Management Services, U.S. Homeland Security and ICE.
The suit seeks to stop development of the detention camp on the site. No further court date has been set.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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