Amid legal wrangling over a controversial immigrant-detention center in the Everglades, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday said the state plans to use a shuttered prison in North Florida to boost detention of people targeted for deportation.
The conversion of Baker Correctional Institution, which state corrections officials mothballed four years ago because of staffing shortages, into a second detention center in Florida will scrap a plan to house immigrant detainees at Camp Blanding west of Jacksonville, DeSantis indicated.
The cost to get the Baker County prison up-and-running will total around $6 million, compared to about $75 million to $100 million for a detention center at Camp Blanding, which is used as a training facility for the Florida National Guard, according to state Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie.
Guthrie said the federal government has pledged to give his agency $608 million to house 5,000 undocumented immigrants as part of the state’s support of President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation efforts.
A controversial immigrant-detention center in the Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” was estimated to cost roughly $450 million to construct and operate for a year. The detention complex, located adjacent to an airstrip known as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, began housing detainees roughly six weeks ago after being quickly built.
Baker Correctional Institution — dubbed “Deportation Depot” by state officials — has proximity to an airport in Lake City that can accommodate planes larger than an airstrip at Camp Blanding, DeSantis told reporters during a news conference Thursday at the prison.
DeSantis said members of the National Guard and private contractors will staff the Baker facility.
“I know we had talked a lot about Camp Blanding, and I think it was a viable option, but this is just better, ready-made. This part of the facility is not being used right now for the state prisoners. It just gives us an ability to go in, stand it up, quickly, stand it up cheaply, and then, ultimately, have something that can be 1,300 (person capacity). It could be more than that,” DeSantis said, adding that “we won’t hesitate” to add more beds if needed.
Hector Diaz, managing partner of the Miami-based Your Immigration Attorney firm, said the converted prison “seems to be overkill,” as most of the people being detained “are not criminals and are being held for minor infractions and misdemeanors.”
“Putting these people in a former state prison correctional center is out of line,” Diaz said in an email.
DeSantis and other state officials “are making the immigration system more chaotic and are doing more harm than achieving their goal,” Diaz said.
DeSantis’ announcement about the prison came amid at least a temporary halt on additional construction at the Everglades site and as two federal-court fights continue.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on Aug. 7 temporarily blocked state officials from additional construction or infrastructure, paving or installation of new lighting at the remote facility.
Williams’ ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity alleging state and federal officials failed to comply with a federal law that required an environmental impact study before construction began on the detention center, which is surrounded by the Big Cypress National Preserve. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida also joined the plaintiffs in the case.
Williams issued a 14-day temporary injunction blocking expansion at the facility and this week heard arguments on the plaintiffs’ request for a longer-lasting preliminary injunction seeking the impact study. Williams said she plans to rule on the request before the temporary injunction expires on Aug. 21.
State officials initially said the Everglades center would house up to 3,000 detainees and could be expanded to add 1,000 people. Guthrie said Thursday the center has a capacity for 2,000 detainees and holds 1,000.
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz on Thursday held a conference with attorneys in a separate lawsuit filed by immigration lawyers alleging that detainees at the South Florida detention center have inadequate access to legal assistance and immigration courts. The lawyers also allege that detainees are unable to meet privately with their attorneys.
In court documents, state officials said they have made strides in establishing a process for detainees to confer with their lawyers by video conference or in person and attributed the delay to the speed with which the Everglades complex was set up.
The immigration attorneys, however, maintain that the process remains inadequate, difficult to navigate and lacks privacy as required by law. As an example, a declaration filed Wednesday said that attorney Vilerka Solange Bilbao has struggled to obtain signed forms that would allow her to meet with clients. The lawyer eventually held a video conference with client Yuniel Michell Figueredo Corrales, a detainee who has been incarcerated at the Everglades facility since July 11. But the declaration said the online meeting was “clearly not confidential” because “Mr. Figueredo Corrales sat in a sort of tent with soft-sided, makeshift fabric walls and no roof” with “guards standing close by.”
Lawyers for state and federal officials are asking Ruiz to transfer the case, which was filed in the federal Southern District of Florida to the Middle District of Florida, which includes Collier County. The majority of the detention center is located in Collier County, but the airstrip is in Miami-Dade County, which is in the Southern District.
Ruiz on Thursday appeared to be grappling with the court venue issue, which he will consider during a hearing Monday before addressing the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction.
“There is a strong possibility that some counts that have been alleged cannot be brought in this district and should have been brought in the Middle District of Florida. There is also a possibility that some counts do indeed belong in the Southern District of Florida. These are some of the issues that I’m struggling with to determine whether or not I think we’ve met the threshold for injunctive relief,” Ruiz said.
Ruiz raised the possibility that the case could be split between the two judicial districts.
“Perhaps it’s a false hope from the court that everybody would say to themselves, judicial economy serves that a judge who spent this much time going through this record should hold on to this case,” Ruiz said. “As I’ve stated, there may be problems with keeping this whole case here, and they’re starting to really crystallize for me.”
–Dara Kam, News Service of Florida
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