Pressure mounted after weeks of inaction, soft words
Finally! After weeks of soft punches and lackluster response, Miami-Dade Mayor Danielle Levine Cava has found her spine and is fighting back against the fascist forces that built and are operating a secret immigration jail in the middle of the Everglades — on an abandoned airstrip that we, the people, own, by the way — without so much as a whisper of due process or transparency.
As far as Gov. Ron DeSantis is concerned, Miami-Dade can go pound sand. Who needs local government or Home Rule when you have emergency powers and delusions of grandeur?
Up to now, Levine Cava has been too polite, citing mostly environmental and financial concerns in very bureaucratic messages. But on Tuesday, she demanded the state provide the county with actual accountability and a peek into the 3,000-bed detention compound plopped down like a giant slap in the face — or federal middle finger pointed at Miami-Dade leaders and residents.
It was almost like she had no political aspirations after this.
But that changed this week, just as the first detainees were getting uncomfortable in their new digs, perhaps in response to a letter sent to the mayor from a coalition of community groups and a pair of billboards that called her out and told residents to urge her to sue the state. Maybe she had to poll first?
In the sharply-worded letter of her own to Attorney General James Uthmeier (a.k.a. DeSantis’ old chief of staff turned full-time enabler), the mayor asked for monitoring access, remote video, weekly updates, and in-person inspections of the sprawling complex, which the AG himself proudly branded “Alligator Alcatraz.” That name ain’t even creative or ironic. It sounds like the punchline of a bad Florida Man joke.
They even have merch. For $30 you can own a t-shirt and for $27, a “trucker’s hat.” Proceeds go to the Republican Party of Florida. Because they see Alligator Alcatraz as a revenue source. Maybe that’s the punchline.

To be fair to the mayor, this quiet power and land grab has happened faster than the cafecito turnaround at the Versailles ventanita. The state took over the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on June 23, and poof — that was the end of local authority. One minute it was county land in the middle of Big Cypress swamp; eight days later, it was a DeSantis internment camp, complete with chain link cages, a 10,000-foot runway to sneak people out of the country and zero press access.
Even Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to distance itself from this abomination, pointing fingers at Florida. This is all the state’s doing.
So, what’s changed Levine Cava’s tone in two weeks? Let’s see…
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National horror story newscasts about the inhumane conditions in ICE facilities and poor treatment of detainees, including a 75-year-old Cuban man who was detained for deportation because of an 1980s marijuana arrest and died in custody in Miami, may have gnawed at her. Half of the deaths in ICE custody since the beginning of the year, by the way, have been in Florida. And that’s before they built a concentration camp of soft-sided tents on a patch of flood-prone wetlands at the edge of the Everglades to keep immigrants that are being snatched off the streets.
Videos have been posted of water pooling around electrical wires at the grand opening tour taken last week by President Donald Trump and DeSantis, which was catered — gotta have finger food for the hungry haters — by local eateries that are now being boycotted. Family members of the first detainees have reported their loves are lacking food (they get one meal a day), basic hygiene and access to legal representation. A group of state legislators were denied entry, even though they have a legal right to come up in for a surprise inspection whenever they want.
Digital billboards shaming the mayor into action — at I-95 and NW 135th Street and on the Dolphin Expressway, facing west — followed a letter sent by a coalition of more than 50 organizations asking La Alcaldesa and the commissioners to sue the state and get Alligator Alcatraz shut down. The letter points out how the whole deal is rips off the county, which is smart because the way to our electeds hearts is through their wallets. The state has offered to pay just $20 million for land worth ten times that, and that would be paid out of disaster funds allocated for things like hurricane relief. The annual operation is estimated at $450 a year, while the state expects to see a $2.8 billion budget shortfall next year.

“DeSantis’s move to seize land owned by Miami-Dade County worth an estimated $195 million has been met with almost no resistance by local officials,” starts the letter from the organizations — which include the ACLU, the Florida Immigrant Coalition, Florida Rising, Community Justice Center, Dream Defenders and Engage Miami, among others. They expect more from our leaders in a county with the highest percentage of immigrant residents in Florida, where more than 54% of residents are foreign-born and more than 70% are Hispanic. They criticized Levine Cava’s “meek resistance” and said her previous communication with the governor had been “technocratic.”
They pointed to “catastrophic” potential impacts, which range from environmental to fiscal to humanitarian.
“The mad dash to open a 3,000 person detention camp is irresponsible and dangerous. Confining immigrants in cages within tents on the ancestral land of the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes during Florida’s extreme summer and hurricane seasons is a deliberately cruel scheme designed to inflict suffering on those held there. That kind of cruelty is reminiscent of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s inhumane tent city in Arizona, which was shut down after years of lawsuits from mistreated prisoners.
“Environmentally, Alligator Alcatraz threatens one of the most ecologically significant and fragile landscapes in North America. The proposed development site is surrounded by sensitive habitats that are already under increasing pressure from climate change, invasive species, and human encroachment. The heavy infrastructure and increased activity associated with a high-security detention camp, including lighting, road traffic, noise pollution, water discharge, and waste generation, would further fragment wildlife corridors and degrade ecosystems protected under federal and state law.”
Then there’s the slap in the face to the native Americans who were in the Everglades before we were. For Florida’s indigenous peoples, the site is priceless sacred ground. Miccosukee tribal member Betty Osceola has been out there protesting almost every day.
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“There are also serious questions about how such a site would protect any semblance of due process for immigrants,” the letter states. “Will those detained in this Everglades Detention Camp have access to lawyers? Will loved ones be able to visit and keep in touch with those in detention? Will there be any oversight by third-party groups on the conditions at this detention camp and the treatment of those detained there? Considering the horrific conditions at other detention facilities in Florida, like Krome Detention Center, the mistreatment and death of detained immigrants seems inevitable – and intentional.”
It’s almost certain that people will die at Alligator Alcatraz. If they haven’t already. Authorities denied that there was a medical emergency even after an ambulance was seen leaving the compound this week. A local hospital official confirmed that they had treated a detainee from the brand new facility. Once caught, authorities admitted someone was transported, without providing any details. But they said he came back and was fine. How can we believe anything they say?
“Authoritarianism festers when executives like Ron DeSantis are allowed to rule by decree. Even before Alligator Alcatraz, DeSantis had defined his political legacy by gleeful cruelty against immigrants. Miami-Dade officials have to unequivocally stand up for all their constituents and push back against those profiting from human suffering in Florida. While we appreciate that Mayor Daniella Levine Cava offered some mild resistance with her letter to the Governor outlining environmental and financial concerns with the project, this moment requires leadership and courage and unequivocal opposition by this body to stop the state law enforcement descension on the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport site in the Everglades.
“We call on Mayor Levine-Cava and the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners to file a lawsuit to stop the operation of Alligator Alcatraz, the dehumanization of Florida residents, and the destruction of our shared natural resources. Any failure to act now implies complicity for the human rights abuses and deaths that will follow if Alligator Alcatraz is allowed to operate.”
What’s she gonna tell her grandchildren?

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