The Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades is not operating at maximum capacity and will be empty in the next few days, according to an email from a senior state official obtained by The New York Times.
Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, wrote in an e-mail last Friday that the detention center, “would probably run out of people in a few days,” detailed the New York newspaper that had access to the message.
The mail was reportedly sent to Rabbi Mario Rojzman, who had requested permission from state authorities to visit the detainees.
The message was reportedly sent a day after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida set a two-month deadline to dismantle the site, west of Miami, where she banned the entry of more migrants, although Alligator Alcatraz will remain operational until then.
Williams ruled partially in favor of the environmental groups Friends of The Everglades and Center for Biological Diversity, as well as the Miccosukee Tribe, which filed a lawsuit demanding the complete and immediate closure of the site for damaging the Everglades, a natural area with 36 endangered endemic species such as panthers, storks, alligators and crocodiles.
The order prohibits installing any additional infrastructure such as tents, dormitories, buildings or offices, as well as paving, excavating or fencing the site, in addition to preventing “bringing any additional persons to the site who were not already detained at the site at the time of the order.”
In response, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office appealed the judge’s decision.
For his part, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said deportations will continue from Alligator Alcatraz, which opened July 3 in an abandoned airport in the middle of the Everglades, a natural wetlands area surrounded by alligators, crocodiles, snakes and panthers.
The state of Florida has repeatedly refused to disclose how many detainees it housed at the facility, so Guthrie’s email is the first sign that the facility is not operating at or near full capacity.
Florida Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost told reporters last Wednesday that he found “far fewer people in detention” on his second visit to the controversial facility that was supposed to have 2,000 beds available.
State authorities told Frost that there were 336 suspected undocumented immigrants detained at the Alligator Alcatraz facility, far fewer than the nearly 1,000 he reported during his visit last month, EFE reported.
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