A coalition of groups ranging from environmental activists to indigenous Americans, who advocate for their ancestors, approached Florida Airport on Saturdays on Saturday to protest the upcoming construction of an immigrant detention center.
Hundreds of protesters lined a part of the US highway 41, which sneaks through the Everglades marsh – also known as the Tamiami Trail – as dump trucks, which draw materials invested in the airport. Cars passing through maintenance, as protesters waving signs calling for the protection of the expansive reserve, which is home to several local tribes and several endangered animal species.
Christopher Makovo, an ecologist, said he had seen a steady stream of trucks entering the site while protesting for hours. Environmental worsening was a big reason for him to come out on Saturday. But as a commissioner of the city of South Florida, he said that fears about immigration attacks in his city also nourish his opposition.
“The people I know are in tears and I wasn’t far from it,” he said.
Florida employees forward last week in the construction of the compound called “Alcatraz” in the wet floats of Everglades.
The government quickly traced the project on extraordinary powers by an enforcement order issued by the government Ron Roanis, which addresses what it addresses as a crisis of illegal immigration. This order allows the state to abandon certain laws for purchase and it is why construction continues despite the objections of the mayor of Miami-Dadd Daniela Levine Kava and local activists.
The facility will have temporary structures such as heavy duty tents and trailers to accommodate immigrants detained. The state estimates that by the beginning of July it will have 5,000 beds for retaining immigration into operation.
The supporters of the Union note its location in the wetlands in Florida – adherent with massive reptiles such as alligators and invasive Burmese pythons – make it an ideal place to hold immigration.
“It is clear that from a security point of view, if someone escapes, you know, there are many alligators,” Zaths said on Wednesday. “Nobody goes anywhere.”
According to the landing, Florida made an aggressive impetus for the implementation of immigration and supported the federal government’s broader repression of illegal immigration. The US Department of Interior Security has supported Alcatraz Alligator, which DHS secretary Christie North said he would be partially funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But the leaders of the Indians in the region have seen construction as an attack on their sacred homes, which caused the protest on Saturday. In the Big Cypress National Reserve, where the airport is located, 15 traditional villages Miccosukee and Seminole, as well as ceremonial and funeral sites and other collection sites.
Others have raised concerns about human rights about what they condemn as an inhuman home of immigrants. Concerns about environmental impact were also at the forefront, as groups such as the Center for Biodiversity and Everhades’s friends filed a case on Friday to stop the plans of the detention center.
“Everglades is a huge, interconnected waterway and wetland system, and what is happening in an area can have harmful effects down the stream,” said the Executive Director of Friends of the Everglades Eve Samples. “So it is really important to have a clear feeling of all the effects of the wetlands that occur in the site.”
Brian Griffin, a spokesman for the landing, said on Friday in response to the lawsuit that the facility is “a necessary operation to place mass deportations located at an existing airport that will not affect the environment.”
Until the site undergoes a comprehensive environmental review and is looking for public commentary, environmental groups say construction should pause. The fast establishment of the facility is a “damn evidence” that the state and federal agencies hope it will be “too late” to cancel their actions if they were ordered by a court to do so, said Elis Bennett, a center for organic diversity working in the case.
Potential environmental hazards are also bleeding in other aspects of Everglades’ lives, including a healthy tourism industry, in which tourists are walking along the paths and investigating air boat swamps, said the Floridians of the founder of the public lands Jessica Ragut, who attended the protest. To place an immigration retention center, it makes the area unwanted for visitors and feed on the misconception that the space is in the “middle of nothingness,” she said.
“Everyone here sees the exhaust fumes, see the oil slices along the way, you know, they hear the sound and the noise pollution. You can imagine what it looks like at night and we are in an international dark sky area,” said Preat. “This is very disappointing because there is such a break for politicians again.”