"My family took us up there to fish, to hunt, to go mudding, it holds a lot of memories for all of us," Mae'anna Osceola-Hart, 21, member of the Miccosukee Panther Clan and Seminole Tribe, tells New Times. "To see it turn into what it's gonna be, it's saddening, all of our memories are going to be erased."
On July 1, organizers led a march from the Panther village to the entrance road to Alligator Alcatraz, where President Donald Trump and other state and federal officials had trumpeted the cage-filled tent city earlier that day.
Miccosukee and Seminole youth orchestrated the gathering alongside Unidos Immokalee, a grassroots group that advocates for immigrant rights. Organizers took to the microphone to express outrage, share resistance tactics, and discuss the intersecting ecological, ethical, and economic reasons to oppose Alligator Alcatraz.
"It's stressful knowing that there's going to be people held against their will in a place that is not sufficient to hold anybody," Saundra Lory Osceola of the Miccosukee tribe tells New Times. "These used to be entrances to old ceremonial grounds when my grandmother's generation was younger. We would come out here with music and just decompress, and we can't have that anymore."
On July 15, the Miccosukee Tribe filed as plaintiff in support of the lawsuit against Alligator Alcatraz, joining Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity in united opposition to the detention center. The Miccosukee Tribe's fight against the facility is the latest in a legacy of resistance to land grabs.
A threat to the tribe's subsistence in the Everglades loomed last year, when the National Park Service proposed defining 200,000 acres of Big Cypress as "wilderness." After tens of thousands voiced opposition, the park service dropped its bid in November.
This was not the first time indigenous land rights were challenged in the name of conservation.
"When Everglades National Park was created, they de-designated that Indian territory to become a part of Everglades National Park," notes Betty Osceola, a member of the Miccosukee Panther Clan renowned for her environmental activism. "At that time, the Miccosukees and Seminoles were told that they were incompatible with the purpose of the park and they had to move out."
A Detention Center Amid a National Preserve
Alligator Alcatraz was built deep in the Big Cypress National Preserve, atop an abandoned airstrip. Miami-Dade County purchased this land in 1968, aiming to construct "the world's largest airport." But county officials hadn't cleared the plan with government regulatory boards or neighboring indigenous groups. After years of uproar from activists, including Marjorie Stoneman Douglas and tribal leaders like Wild Bill McKinley Osceola, the airport plan and the airstrip were abandoned."My great-grandpa was one of the men that fought against the airport as well as other tribesmen and environmentalists," Osceola-Hart says. "To be here today, it's crazy to watch history repeat itself, and it's crazy that this is happening, but I have to fight just like my great grandpa did."
Contractors erected the tent city with eye-popping speed, able to bypass zoning laws, local government ordinances, and federal funding restrictions thanks to an emergency order issued by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Osceola-Hart's aunt, Wynter Dawn Billie, learned how to drive along the road leading into Alligator Alcatraz. Now, she cautions her children against crossing the road to the mailbox, weary of the semi-trucks routinely passing their home. Transport for detainees to the facility follows the bus route for Miccosukee schools.
"Even in my house, when we are trying to sleep, we can hear it," Billie says. "The trucks are going through day and night. They don't stop. Even the trucks that go in and out of here, they're speeding down the road."
Osceola-Hart and Billie emphasize that Indigenous rights and immigrant rights intertwine at Alligator Alcatraz, and that the two groups share a long history as allies.
"My grandma would tell these stories about when her [family] would go to Homestead and work alongside farmworkers and pick tomatoes hours on end just to make a couple cents," Osceola-Hart shares. "Their hard work would never go unnoticed with us. They worked alongside them, you know, they understand. For this to be only an environmental issue, what are we doing? This also involves the people affected by being put in there."
Nearly 58,000 people are currently held in immigration detention centers nationwide. Since January, at least five people have died while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in Florida, including Isidro Pérez, 75, who was being held at the notorious Krome Detention Center 30 miles east of Alligator Alcatraz. Pérez's death marked the 11th life lost in ICE custody since January.
"I think we're all treated the same in that they treat us like we have no voice, but meanwhile we're the backbone of this entire country," Billie says. "They feel entitled to take whatever they want, and this is proof right here — they don't care about human life."
Environmentalists and Weather Experts Sound the Alarm
Alligator Alcatraz places thousands of immigrants on terrain that's deeply vulnerable to hurricanes. In June, experts sounded the alarm regarding federal cuts to storm-monitoring satellite technology. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allocated $625 million from its Shelter and Services Program to sustain the detention center."Let's say if you're conservative leaning, if you're all about government efficiency, you're wasting almost half a billion dollars for what — a dog and pony show out here? It's a massive waste of resources, in addition to being an affront to people's rights as humans," William "Popeye" Osceola, Secretary of the Miccosukee Business Council, says.
For Miccosukee and Seminole tribe members, it's yet another battle in an ancient ancestral fight. Before Alligator Alcatraz, Jetport, Big Cypress, and Florida statehood, the Miccosukee people found protection in the hammocks that dot the Everglades. Fleeing attacks from the U.S. Army, roughly 100 Miccosukee people escaped into the River of Grass. Thus began a long history of steadfast stewardship.
Environmentalists argue that Alligator Alcatraz threatens water flow and sewage management in the Everglades, which replenishes drinking water in Florida's aquifer. The state's aquifer serves the largest population of any in the nation, including local tribes like the Miccosukee and all of South Florida.
"I was talking to my family that when this is all over — because this should be over — that our tribes, Seminole and Miccousukee, should join together and purchase land from the county," Osceola-Hart says. "We are just so tied to everything around us, we have to protect whatever we can."
