Emails show DeSantis administration blindsided county officials with plans for ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

TALLAHASSEE Fla AP Florida Gov Ron DeSantis administration left a multitude of local officers in the dark about the immigration detention center that rose from an isolated airstrip in the Everglades emails obtained by The Associated Press show while relying on an executive order to seize the land hire contractors and navigate around laws and regulations The emails show that local leaders in southwest Florida were still trying to chase down a rumor about the sprawling Alligator Alcatraz facility planned for their county while state executives were already on the ground and sending vendors through the gates to coordinate construction of the detention center which was designed to house thousands of movers and went up in a matter of days Not cool one local official described the state agency director spearheading the construction The -plus emails dated June to July obtained through a residents records request underscore the breakneck speed at which the the governor s unit built the facility and the extent to which local leaders were blindsided by the plans for the compound of makeshift tents and trailers in Collier County a wealthy majority-Republican corner of the state that s home to white-sand beaches and the western stretch of the Everglades The executive order originally signed by the Republican governor in and extended since then accelerated the project allowing the state to seize county-owned land and evade rules in what critics have called an abuse of power The order granted the state sweeping authority to suspend any statute rule or order seen as slowing the response to the immigration urgency A representative for DeSantis did not right away respond to a request for comment Known as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport the airstrip is about miles kilometers west of downtown Miami It is located within Collier County but is owned and managed by neighboring Miami-Dade County The AP requested for similar records from Miami-Dade County which is still processing the request To DeSantis and other state administrators building the facility in the remote Everglades and naming it after a notorious federal prison were meant as deterrents It s another sign of how President Donald Trump s administration and his allies are relying on scare tactics to pressure people who are in the country illegally to leave Detention center in the Everglades Never heard of that Collier County Commissioner Rick LoCastro apparently first heard about the proposal after a concerned resident in another county sent him an email on June A citizen is asking about a proposed detention center in the Everglades LoCastro wrote to County Manager Amy Patterson and other staff Never heard of that Am I missing something I am unaware of any land use petitions that are proposing a detention center in the Everglades I ll check with my intake organization but I don t believe any such proposal has been received by Zoning replied the county s planning and zoning director Michael Bosi Environmental groups have since filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the state illegally bypassed federal and state laws in building the facility In fact LoCastro was included on a June email from state authorities announcing their intention to buy the airfield LoCastro sits on the county s governing board but does not lead it and his district does not include the airstrip He forwarded the message to the county attorney saying Not sure why they would send this to me In the email Kevin Guthrie the head of the Florida Division of Urgency Management which built the detention center declared the state intended to work collaboratively with the counties The message referenced the executive order on illegal immigration but it did not specify how the state sought to use the site other than for future emergency response aviation logistics and staging operations The next day Collier County s emergency management director Dan Summers wrote up a briefing for the county manager and other local officers including specific notes about the rumor he had heard about plans for an immigration detention facility at the airfield Summers knew the place well he declared after doing a detailed site survey a sparse years ago The infrastructure is well nothing much but a limited equipment barns and a mobile home office wet and mosquito-infested Summers wrote FDEM advised Summers that while the agency had surveyed the airstrip NO mobilization or action plans are being executed at this time and all activity was investigatory Summers wrote Crisis director commented lack of information was not cool By June Summers was racing to prepare a presentation for a meeting of the board of county commissioners the next day He shot off an email to FDEM Director Kevin Guthrie seeking confirmation of basic facts about the airfield and the plans for the detention facility which Summers understood to be conceptual and in discussion or investigatory stages only Is it in the plans or is there an actual operation set to open Summers demanded Rumor is operational the present day In fact the agency was already on site with our vendors coordinating construction of the site FDEM bureau chief Ian Guidicelli responded Not cool That s not what was relayed to me last week or over the weekend Summers responded adding that he would have egg on my face with the Collier County Sheriff s Office and Board of County Commissioners It s a Collier County site I am on your crew how about the courtesy of selected coordination On the evening of June FDEM officially notified Miami-Dade County it was seizing the county-owned land to build the detention center under crisis powers granted by the executive order Plans for the facility sparked concerns among first responders in Collier County who questioned which agency would be responsible if an emergency should strike the site Discussions on the issue grew tense at times Local Fire Chief Chris Wolfe wrote to the county s chief of crisis anatomical services and other personnel on June I am not attempting to argue with you more merely seeking how we are going to prepare for this that is clearly within the jurisdiction of Collier County Not our circus not our monkeys Summers the urgency management director repeatedly reached out to FDEM for guidance trying to eliminate particular of the confusion around the site As he and other county officers waited for details from Tallahassee they turned to local news outlets for information sharing links to stories among themselves Keep them coming Summers wrote to county Communications Director John Mullins in response to one news article since its crickets from Tally at this point Hoping to manage any blowback to the county s tourism industry local bureaucrats kept close tabs on media coverage of the facility watching as the news spread rapidly from local newspapers in southwest Florida to national outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times and international news sites as far away as Great Britain Germany and Switzerland As questions from reporters and complaints from concerned residents streamed in local functionaries lined up legal documentation to show the airfield was not their responsibility In an email chain labeled Not our circus not our monkeys County Attorney Jeffrey Klatzkow wrote to the county manager My view is we have no interest in this airport parcel which was acquired by eminent domain by Dade County in Meanwhile construction at the site plowed ahead with trucks arriving around the clock carrying portable toilets asphalt and construction materials Among the companies that snagged multimillion dollar contracts for the work were those whose owners donated generously to DeSantis and other Republicans On July just days after Collier County first got wind of the plans the state officially opened the facility welcoming DeSantis Trump Homeland Precaution Secretary Kristi Noem and other state and national functionaries for a tour A county crisis management staffer fired off an email to Summers asking to be included on any site visit to the facility Absolutely Summers replied After the President s visit and various of the chaos on-site settles-in we will get you all down there